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This book on thermodynamic and statistical mechanics is one of a series of short, single-topic texts that the Royal Society of Chemistry is producing to cover the fundamental areas of chemistry taught at the undergraduate level. The series is called “Tutorial Chemistry Texts” and this is number 10. The book consists of 13 short chapters. The first seven are dedicated to thermodynamics. Chapters one through four cover the zeroth, first, second, and third Law of Thermodynamics. The concepts of internal energy, enthalpy, and entropy are introduced. Chapter five develops the concept of free energy and chapters six and seven deal with the application of thermodynamics to phase transitions and chemical equilibrium. The second half of the book, chapters eight through 13, is concerned with the basic concepts of statistical mechanics. Chapter eight defines entropy statistically and nine introduces the notion of ensembles. Chapter 10 deals with the partition function and its relation to quantities such as the internal energy, entropy, and free energy, and in chapters 11 and 12 statistical mechanics is used to explain the behavior of two ideal gas model systems—one composed of atoms and the other of diatomic molecules. The text concludes with a chapter on the relationship between statistical mechanics and chemical equilibrium. The glossary and subject index are well done and helpful.
This book, it should be clearly stated, is not a textbook. Rather, as the title of the series suggests, it is a tutorial—a primer, if you will. As a tutorial it is very good. The mathematical level is just right and the ideas are presented in a clear and concise manner. The main reason these tutorials cannot be used as textbooks is that they do not contain many end-of-chapter problems or exercises. This particular text only has three or four problems in each chapter, which are worked in detail at the end of the book.
I think this book will be invaluable to undergraduates taking thermodynamics for the first time. If other volumes in this series dealing with topics such as spectroscopy, reaction kinetics, and quantum mechanics are of similar quality, this entire series would be a wonderful addition to any undergraduate chemistry library.
I would like to conclude with a reflection that may resonate with readers who teach undergraduate
physical chemistry. Undergraduate physical chemistry textbooks are divided into two categories: those designed for a year-long course for chemistry majors and those dedicated to students interested primarily in the biological sciences. Excellent textbooks exist in both categories. My sense for the last few years, however, has been that the textbooks written for the year-long course are a bit too long and complex to serve as an introduction to physical chemistry for most of my students. Is that a sense you share? The textbooks written with emphasis on the biological sciences will not do for the year-long course for majors because they are written for a different audience. What I guess I'm saying, is that I see the need for a different kind of textbook. Why mention that in this review? Because the textbook I have in mind would look remarkably similar to the book one would get if one was to put the tutorials in this series on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, reaction kinetics, quantum mechanics, structure and bonding, and spectroscopy, back-to-back and added 20 problems at the end of each chapter. This tutorial is that good.
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