Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach

I stumbled across this awesome tome in my university library. A professor of mine, a biophysicist, had talked to me about some problems he did as a Ph.D. student and identified them as being part of this strange subject called "physical chemistry." I was intrigued. I've never been much of a chemistry buff. It just never took for me in highschool, and the labs at my university weren't run in a very interesting way, so my knowledge of pure chemistry is mediocre at best. But, as a physics major, I already have a working knowledge of quantum and stat mech -- and this book still managed to teach me an enormous amount of new material. (I particularly liked the derivation of the emission and absorption spectrums of diatomic molecules in chapter 5, and the molecular spectroscopy in chapter 13. Awesome stuff. I feel like I could go out, join a spectroscopy lab, and do actual calculations now, if I wanted to.) And the presentation is better than I've see for most PHYSICS books devoted to these subjects! It's treatment of quantum rivals Griffiths, a classic qm text, and the stat mech is among the clearest I've seen. Not only am I interested in chemistry now (for the first time in my life!) I want to get a copy of this book just for the physics in it! I'm extremely jealous of the reviewer who got to take classes from one of the authors -- his teaching skills come through on every page, and sitting in his lecture hall must've been quite an experience.

I adore this book. It explains physical chemistry in a way that makes perfect sense. I used it for my chemical engineering thermodynamics I class. While other people contented themselves with memorizing really long equations and formulas, I was able to derive them by reading McQuarrie's book. I found that my chemical engineering textbook just spat out an equation out of nowhere and told us to know it, this book starts out with the chemistry, explains the theory, and clearly shows how to get to the equation. These things don't come out of nowhere, they can be taught and derived! I haven't even taken p chem but I look forward to it after using this book for ChemE thermo.

I had the good fortune of having Donald McQuarrie as a Professor for 5 Physical Chemistry courses while I was an undergrad at Indiana University (2 undergrad semsters and 3 graduate semesters). (He is now at UC Davis). His clarity and skills of being a classroom teacher was awesome. In the intervening years, I had forgotten a lot of what I had known in PChem - in spite of having gotten a PhD in the subject from Cal Berkeley. (Industry does that to one). Now that my interests coincide with relearning the subject, I was turned off by the textbooks that I had. In searching for a text, I noticed McQuarrie had written one. I decided that it was definately worth checking out. Upon reading it - it became obvious that all those years of teaching the subject had paid off. The clarity in approaching the subject was set to print!What is great about his text is: 1) Totally self contained. The math needed for a particular subject is put into interleafing chapters on a "just in time basis." I can see how that might be a turnoff for someone whose math skills are sharp, advanced and current. On the otherhand, for folks that need a refresher (like myself) or had limited exposure to the subject - It is right there, right now, no hunting around needed. 2) Comprehensive. YOU DO NOT NEED ANOTHER TEXT. If you have the misfortune of having a class where the Professor has chosen another text this would be THE supplemenatry text (though at [price] new there would be an 'ouch' factor). 3) BREAKS PARADIGMS. If you look at almost any other text on Physical Chemistry (Barrow or Atkins or .....), the Table of Contents is identical - the subject is taught in the order the historical discoveries where made. It is like in every generation the leading Physical Chemists took the old texts and APPENDED the latest and greatest to it. Guess What! That is not neccessary the Best way to LEARN (or in my case relearn) the subject. It is not neccesarily the method best suited for focusing on what is most applicable and utilized currently. McQuarrie's approach was a top/down rethinking of how to teach the subject. The focus as the subject indicates "A molecular Approach". While there is historical value in seeing how the pioneers took prinicples of thermodynamics -discovered when physicists scoffed at the very notion of molecules and then were able to show (a la Boltzman) that if one starts with molecules - one can derive thermodynamics from it. It is actually much more streamlined to learn it the opposite - focus on the notion of molecules first and foremost. This is the text of PChem for the 21st century.As an aside, McQuarrie pays homage to the pioneers by having a Scientist highlighted per chapter. All in all a great text from a great teacher!

One of the most emerging fear of P-Chem students is the rigid dificulty and obscureness of the mathematical background. Many textbooks have unfortunately overseen the importance of treating the mathematics and establishing link between the mathematics and the physical interpretation of chemical phenomenon. McQuarrie's text addresses and amends this problem in a brilliant. Difficult mathematical concepts are integrated along with the appropriate topics and are presented in a concise fashion. The first half of the text discusses topics in quantum chemistry while the rest deals with thermodynamics, statistical mechanics,and kinetics. All the equations are backed by clear explanation and mathematical derivation. When I took quantum chemistry (the first course of the P-Chem sequence), we used McQuarrie and it worked just fine in explaining all the topics covered in lecture.s (such as spectroscopy, perturbation theory, etc). Unfortunately professor from the second semester (thermodynamics) decided to abandon McQuarrie and used instead Atkins' Physical Chemistry, which is absolutely not worth the money and very confusing and difficult to follow. I kept the McQuarrie book and used that as study aids and reference, whereas I trashed Atkins as soon as the semester was over (well, I immediately sold it back). McQuarrie is the only P-Chem book you'll find useful and clear.

While not a book for beginers, it is easy to understand at a moderate knowledge level. This physical chemistry book encompassed a variety of topics in a thorough, yet easy to understand method while providing a sound mathematical background. It provided information on a general level (suitable for second year thermodynamics and inorganic courses), while also delving into more complex topics. The sections on thermodynamics seemed especially well covered. It is a good book, but as a Chemical-Physics student I would not recomend it to first year students without suitable quantum theory or mathematical backgrounds.