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Instructors of physical chemistry face a philosophical dilemma in confronting student fears about the general difficulty of the subject matter and the specific concern about the mathematical rigor of the material. Should instructors insist that physical chemistry is a rewarding subject because of its uniquely conceptual and quantitative nature, or should instructors admit that it is an equation-filled nightmare for many students and take explicit steps to minimize the pain? I have been inclined to take the former (optimistic!) approach that my physical chemistry courses are just different from other chemistry courses, rather than inherently more difficult or spirit crushing. Moreover, I attempt to convey to students that the mathematical rigor pays dividends in getting to the heart of such fundamental concepts as the interpretation of the chemical significance of the solutions to the common quantum mechanical models. Therefore, when I began to read Survival Guide for Physical Chemistry, its very title seemed to strongly indicate that its author, Michelle Francl, was operating from the less-optimistic philosophical position. Indeed, the very first sentence in the book discusses the existence of the “Honk if you passed pchem” bumper stickers that the American Chemical Society used to sell. While this is certainly not a good way to get students excited about the prospect of taking a physical chemistry course, Francl intentionally confronts student fears throughout the text in an honest and supportive style. Therefore, while some instructors may not like the tone of the text, I suspect that students will appreciate its “realistic” approach.
Survival Guide for Physical Chemistry is a text designed to supplement a standard textbook in the teaching of an undergraduate physical chemistry course by providing practical advice on just about every aspect of a typical lecture and laboratory course. The first chapter provides standard advice on how to succeed in a college lecture course, with specific advice on problem-solving techniques. Francl's supportive tone is particularly apparent in this chapter, as she advises students to try to avoid working against deadlines: “Experience suggests that you tend to forget the simplest things at 1 a.m. in the midst of a problem set.” The second chapter on practical mathematical techniques is the heart of the text, with descriptions and examples of a wide variety of methods. The use of computers in physical chemistry is addressed in the third chapter. Finally, laboratory-related skills are addressed in the fourth chapter, with specific advice on keeping notebooks, writing reports, and searching the literature.
In general, the textbook succeeds in its intended purpose. In particular, I think the emphasis on providing practical guidance on mathematical problem solving will be most useful to students. The general philosophy is summed up in the preface: “It is one thing to know the definition of a total derivative, quite another to see how it can be used to derive the Maxwell relations in thermochemistry.” Francl quite correctly points out that the slight differences in mathematical nomenclature used in calculus courses can often be enough to thoroughly confuse and frustrate physical chemistry students. Indeed, I have dealt with many students who are convinced that their calculus course did not cover the relevant physical chemistry mathematical methods, only to find that they simply did not recognize the technique needed because of the slightly different context. Therefore, I think Francl's emphasis on giving students a “cookbook” approach to solving different types of problems is appropriate. Another recently published supplementary physical chemistry text, Applied Mathematics for Physical Chemistry by James R. Barrante, is also intended to bridge the gap between the methods used in calculus and physical chemistry courses. Barrante's approach is more complete, in that the conceptual underpinnings of the various mathematical approaches are described, while Francl is satisfied with presenting the machinery.
The weakest chapter in the text concerns the use of computers in physical chemistry. Francl discusses computer programming in some detail in the text. As statistical and graphing software have become more powerful, I have observed less need for student knowledge of computer programming, and an even greater fall-off in student experience with any kind of computer programming. I think it is probably unrealistic to expect that today's physical chemistry students will engage in any kind of “command line” computer programming. While Francl does appropriately discuss the use of Mathematica in solving physical chemistry problems, there is very little description of spreadsheet methods. I suspect that Francl has intentionally made this choice, as there have been two recent texts on using Microsoft's Excel in scientific applications: Excel for Engineers and Scientists by S. C. Bloch and Spreadsheet Applications in Chemistry using Microsoft Excel by Dermot Diamond and Venita C. A. Hanratty. Because of the difficulty in obtaining sufficient technical support for chemistry-specific software, I now almost exclusively use spreadsheet type analyses in my physical chemistry courses. This approach is more consistent with student experience in past and future courses, since most of them have experience with spreadsheets prior to my course, and they appreciate the significantly more sophisticated spreadsheet techniques that they learn while taking my course that they can apply to other courses, present and future. Since Survival Guide for Physical Chemistry is intended to be a comprehensive guide to students, I consider the lack of significant advice on spreadsheet methods to be a major omission.
Overall, I would recommend that instructors of physical chemistry consider Francl's text as a supplementary text for their courses. However, instructors who use a main textbook like Donald McQuarrie and John Simon's Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach, which contains “math chapters” to deal with many of the same mathematical issues addressed by Francl, may find that this supplementary text is not complementary enough to justify recommending its purchase to students.
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