Physical chemistry courses approach

You will have to decide whether to use a mathematical approach or a more conceptual or heuristic approach. The students in the United States of America are now less well prepared in mathematics than were the students of a few decades ago. This provides an incentive to make your physical chemistry course... 

Apart from the advantages of a T-first approach that I outlined earlier, it seems to me that there is one serious disadvantage of a Q-first approach, which is the unfamiliarity and depth of the mathematics needed to do anything in quantum mechanics. Great care must be taken in a Q-first approach not to overwhelm students at that early stage of their physical chemistry course (or, indeed, at any stage), especially when heavy mathematics is in alliance with bizarre concepts. 

Computational chemistry is essential in a modem physical chemistry course. One approach would be to use laboratory time to have students work through a number of exercises accompanied by elaboration of the concepts in lecture or pre-laboratory discussions. Each of die major computational chemistry software packages come with workbooks or tutorials for learning the software. For example, students can learn by completing exercises in the Spartan tutorials (57). Similar approaches can be taken when using Gaussian (38) and Hyperchem (39) tutorial or exercise collections. 

As instructors of physical chemistry, we all too often hear comments like the one in the title of this chapter. The prevailing attitude with which many students approach physical chemistry is one of fear for their academic survival. The concerns they have are not so much with the chemistry but with the math. For some students, the physical chemistry course is the first time they must authentically apply advanced mathematical concepts to solve real problems. Instructors can facilitate this transformation with exercises that demand critical thinking skills, but developing such materials requires extensive time and talent. The Virtual Substance molecular dynamics program is a powerful tool in our efforts as educators to help students successfully transition from abstract knowledge of mathematics to its application to scientific concepts. 

Factors such as the above have shaped our approach to the present edition. The philosophy behind the first two editions was that most of the material in the book should be a natural extension of an introductory physical chemistry course at the undergraduate level and should be accessible to anyone (students as well as practicing engineers and scientists) with such a background. This remains the rule in the present edition as well. In our opinion, this orientation is essential for giving a firm foundation in colloids and surfaces to the diverse audience, which typically includes individuals from almost all branches of engineering and the sciences. 

As previously, the sources on statistical thermodynamics are hardly numerable. Conciseness in them struggles with comprehensibility and both lose. Elementary information is given in physical chemistry courses already mentioned [1,2]. More fundamental courses are [3] - a rather physical one and [4] - a classical text on this subject. An interesting approach based on consistent usage of a single quantity - the entropy - is described in [5]. 

Since the theoretical component of physical chemistry courses often involves contents that are totally new to students and cannot be linked to any aspect of their expected prior knowledge, the integrated combination of presentation of new information by the lecturer and derivation of inferences on an interactive basis - guiding students to discover the implications of the new information - has proved the most viable strategy. An extant example in this regard is offered by the quantum chemistry course, whose content does not relate to expected prior knowledge, and for which even the derivation of inferences or the identification of implications follows patterns that are not familiar from any other previous experience therefore, interactions require extensive guidance by the lecturer, to facilitate the contact with an approach to the interpretation of physical reality that is totally new both from a conceptual and from a mathematical point of view [43]. 

As you will see, this text has a novel approach. The ideas, organization, emphasis, and examples herein have evolved from the experience of teaching several different physical chemistry courses at several North American universities. 

Powerful streamlined development of group theory and advanced topics in quantum mechanics Appendix B (Molecular Symmetry) and Appendix C (Special Quantum Mechanical Approaches) cover topics that many physical chemistry courses include and that could each in fact be their own chapter. However, they are not essential to the flow of fhe remaining maferial, and so fhese appear af fhe end for inclusion in a course af the instructor s discretion. 

In the course of his studies of the dyeing process, he became deeply interested in the structure of natural fibers, and most of his efforts were directed toward this new field of research, with the help of able associates, among them R. Brill, M. Dunkel, G. von Susich, and E. Valkd. His investigation of various aspects of the problem utilized physical means (for example, x-ray diffraction, optical properties, and viscosity) and the purely chemical approach. A young scientist, H. Mark, who later became an authority in the field of high polymers, was appointed head of the physical chemistry laboratory. 

There are a number of good choices, but you will not be completely satisfied with any textbook. 1 was not even completely satisfied when 1 used a textbook that I had written. You will probably choose a textbook that is compatible with your sequence of topics. There is at least one popular two-semester textbook that begins with quantum mechanics. (P) Most of the one-volume textbooks begin with thermodynamics but can accommodate different sequences. There are now physical chemistry textbooks that come in two or even four volumes, which provides for flexibility. In making your choice of textbook, you should consider clarity of presentation for the student. Because you are already familiar with die subject, this can be hard for you to judge. I once chose a textbook that seemed perfectly clear to me, but was not at all clear to the students. Next, you should consider the approach of the book. If you want to teach a more mathematically based course, you will probably decide to choose a textbook that uses this approach and not simply plan to provide supplementary information in class. 

The first question that comes to mind when considering the structure of a course in physical chemistry is its order. Broadly speaking, there are the camps inhabited by thermodynamics first (T-first) and those inhabited by quantum first (Q-first). I shall set out what I see as the advantages of each approach. 

The growth of computational chemistry and the ready availability of commercial ab initio packages has had a dramatic effect on the way that physical chemistry is practiced in the contemporary research laboratory. The clear implication is that without integration of computational chemistry into our physical chemistry laboratory curriculum we will be failing to teach our students how contemporary research is conducted. Fortunately, a number of approaches to including computational chemistry in the physical chemistry laboratory have been developed. These range from modifications of the full course to individual computational chemistry exercises for the laboratory. These developments can be found in Table VII. 

Teaching quantum mechanics first in physical chemistry gives the properly prepared and motivated student a presentation that best represents the most active areas of physical chemistry research. A thermodynamics first approach remains most consistent with the order found in most currently used textbooks avoiding the disorientation associated with skipping around in the textbook early in the course. However, we believe that a large segment of the chemistry major... 

Differences in perception of the technique s maturity may originate from a simple lack of widespread knowledge about the approach. There are only a few short courses offered. Many students learn of it only as a side note in a physical chemistry textbook and never have hands-on training to use it. Laboratory-based Raman instrumentation is not as ubiquitously available for familiarization and casual experimentation as FTIR. While most vendors will arrange to do feasibility studies and preliminary trials with potential customers, these kinds of short experiments make it difficult for new users to build a solid familiarity with the technique. If a group has years of experience with NIR, it can be difficult to remember to re-examine Raman spectroscopy for each new project to see if it would be a better technical choice and ultimately easier to do. 

This book is about the thermodynamics of enzyme-catalyzed reactions that make up the metabolism of living organisms, ft is not an introductory text, but the fundamental principles of thermodynamics are reviewed. The reader does need some background in thermodynamics, such as that provided by a first course in physical chemistry. The book uses a generalized approach to thermodynamics that makes it possible to calculate the effects of changing pH, free concenrations of metal ions that are bound by reactants, and steady-state concentrations of coenzymes. This approach can be extended to other types of work that may be involved in a living organism. 

---