Physical chemistry teaching difficulties

Next, I shall examine the challenges that confront us as we try to teach physical chemistry. Figure la summarizes what I think are the main difficulties there is the mathematical aspect of our subject, the abstract character of many of its central concepts, and the overall complexity of physical chemistry. No difficulty is an island, and 1 like to think that the triangle summarizes the interplay between difficulties rather than their isolation. 

Since 1993, much has changed in physical chemistry. The field is dynamic and growing, which adds to the difficulty of teaching the subject. If new material is added to convey to the students the excitement of new discoveries, what old material will be cut from the course The richness of the field means that difficult choices need to be made. However, we think that including recent discoveries in the course material is essential and that three developments in that time span serve as nice examples to illustrate the future of teaching physical... 

Unfortunately, for a few years all science departments suffered from financial restraints imposed by the university. Even so, by 1985 the number of fellow/lecturers in physical chemistry was 16 and had risen from 11 in 1973, 8 of whom were still in post. We shall see later that certainly by 2005, when there were still 16, the interests of the laboratory were very much broader, and we describe below this new work some of it introduced in Rowlinson s time. Some of the difficulties in attempting to elect lecturers with new interests arise from departmental attitudes, others from teaching, including college, needs. It will happen sometimes that the best candidate overall meets somewhat parochial views while those who might introduce novelty fail to match these local needs. 

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