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Chemistry- Matter and Its Changes

5 stars (excellent text) - This textbook is an excellent way to learn chemistry. It provides very nice graphics to explain the text. This text makes learning chemistry very enjoyable and interesting. Senese and Brady did a wonderful job with this book. I highly recommend it. 5 stars (this text does stand out from the pack...) - ...in a number of ways. The chapter on stoichiometry is the first one I flip to when I'm evaluating a new text. This book does a better job of providing a conceptual foundation for the mole concept than any other book I've seen. It shows the rationale behind the concept by working a few simple problems with and without moles. The problem setups emphasize strategic thinking by asking students to identify the 'critical link' that connects given information with the problem's goal. The "Is the answer reasonable" checks given with each problem are more detailed and more helpful than in other texts; they help students develop a sense for what is and isn't reasonable in the answer, using alternative back-of-the-envelope solutions that often provide additional insight into the nature of the problem. The chapter on atomic structure is the only one I've seen that uses the central idea of quantum mechanics (wave-particle duality) as its central theme. It elegantly uses the de Broglie relation to tie wave and particle behaviors together, in the process naturally explaining where quantum numbers come from and why changes in electron confinement in a reaction can lead to color changes. The thermodynamics chapter is also quite innovative, discarding the idea of entropy as a measure of disorder and instead stressing its connection with the number of ways a state can be realized. A simple model of heat flow from a hot object to a cold object makes the connection between probability and process spontaneity clear. The approach for explaining and predicting molecular shapes is much better than that used in other texts, where students end up memorizing a large...
Wiley :: Science & Chemistry & General :: Science&Mathematics :: Science :: Chemistry - General :: Chemistry (General) :: Chemistry :: Fred Senese :: James E Brady :: :: Chemistry- Matter and Its Changes