Mathematics for Physical Chemistry: Opening Doors

Got me through my p chem course just fine.

"Used - Good - Crisp copy, clean pages", exactly as described. Actually, a "Very" good copy.

Got this book because it's the best one for teaching an undergrad math course for physical chemistry, which a colleague and I - fellow mathematician - will be doing in spring 2011. The chemistry students are looking forward to it; asked us to create the course.

I wanted to rate this a one star, but I didn't, because that was not the books fault. If you are going to take an introductory course to Physical Chemistry and your professor is going to teach from this book, expect to learn nothing, unless your professor is stellar. Mine wasn't. I would definitely suggest this book: [...] also by McQuarrie.If you want a small book to as a refresher of material you already learned, this book may be sufficient, however, if you are learning this for the first time, like me, you will be in a world of pain. Well, maybe not, but you'll understand. I docked one star because the book simply lacks detailed explanations as to why something is done, as well as skips over vital steps that may not be so obvious. Again, I only took off one star because what's obvious to you may not be obvious to me. Purchase with caution.

Good book.

Greatbook

This is a great book to review mathematical concepts that you have already had exposure to. However, this is not the book to use if you have never learned derivatives, integrals, or differential equations. Nevertheless, with dedication, you can review the chapters in this book over and over again until you gain a familiarity with its concepts which are pretty much all you need to know for the field of Physical Chemistry. The writing is superb and you can feel the passion of the author pulsating through the pages.

If using this as part of a class it is probably great. Though for self-study and review I would recommend just using books with lots of examples and problems to work such as the Schaum's outline. I just found myself going through the chapters and using them more as an outline to look up the topics in other resources which had more problems to work out. It was frustrating to flip to the end-of-chapter problems, to work them out then have no way to check my work to see if I was getting answers right.