Physical Chemistry

Rating:
Summary: High potential for future editions
Review: At first glance David Ball's text is excellent and because of this I used it to teach my physical chemistry course last year. It is nicely written and easy to read. As with any first edition there are numerous typos - but these are posted on Ball's web page as they are found. The basic thermodynamics and quantum mechanics sections are quite good and I especially like the group theory section - but the statistical mechanics, ESR, and NMR sections are quite poor in my opionion and contain numerous errors (not typos) which I discovered only in teaching these topics in the end of the second semester course. I am currently looking for a new text but I eagerly await a second edition in which these errors will be fixed. This book has a lot of potential and for basic thermodynamics and quantum mechanics it is very good.

Rating:
Summary: Best Physical Chemistry Book
Review: If you are forced to use Atkins for Physical Chemistry, then do yourself the favor of buying this book. This is by far the best P. Chem. book that I have ever seen. The concepts are clear without watering down the subject. I love this book so much now that P. Chem. finally makes sense to me. I especially love the section on Quantum Mechanics. I use this book primarily as the textbook for my class because it follows closely the material outlined in Atkins stupid, pedantic book.