Re: Chemistry with calculus???

Tony Sinclair wrote:

I am retired, and I am trying to self-educate myself in areas where I
feel I am not informed. I do this by reading college texts on various
subjects.

In many physical and even social sciences, general textbooks are
divided into those for that employ calculus, and those that don't.
The former are usually meant for majors in the subject, or for
students with better preparation. I am comfortable with calculus, and
I find that the non-calculus books are not only less deep, but are
often harder to understand when they try to explain concepts or derive
results without using calculus.

Long story short, I had no trouble finding introductory physics and
economics texts that use calculus, but I'm having a very hard time
finding an introductory chemistry textbook that does. Can someone
recommend calculus-based chemistry texts suitable for a student who
has, say, a year of calculus and physics, but is new to chemistry, or
are they ALL just based on algebra? Thank you.

Chemistry has five primary divisions: Organic, inorganic, analytical,
physical, theoretical. The first two are founded upon compiled
observation, the third is statistical. You will not see mathematical
modeling until rather late on. Physical and theoretical are deeply
math-based at the onset. Note that nobody yet has a richly predictive
theoretical model of water, H2O - and not for want of trying.

The spectroscopies and spectrometries originate in physics. However,
the world is a dirty complex place. Elegant rigorous theory often
takes a back seat to practical semi-empirical intepretation.
Example: Look at an IR of wax depilatory and adjuncts,

"Looks like vegetable oil with an isopropyl group."

Isopropyl groups give a Fermi resonance that splits the absorbance
line. You can wonderfully model that but it won't fill a crock pot
with warm goo being smeared on and ripped off a sorority's legs to
test the me-too product. Olive oil plus an antioxidant got around the
patent that eloquently enumerated specific chemistries. Natural!
including the antioxidant.

(Worked to spec on legs. Guys in lab coats keeping a straight face +
bikini lines made for an OK day in the lab. So-so on bikini lines.)

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
.

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