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Preface vii
This text is written against a series of computer-aided learning
(CAL) tutorials. These tutorials have been in use for the past four
years at University College Cork (UCC) (and more recently at the
University of Wales, Cardiff and Dublin City University), and are
extremely popular with the 300 students per year taking the course.
With such a back-up to the courseware, the main recommended
physical chemistry textbook, the large and small group tutorials and
the lecture course, the student should not feel so isolated with the
problems associated with physical chemistry.
The use of the CAL courseware in UCC is entirely optional and
supplementary to the normal teaching programme (namely, lectures,
practicals, large and small group tutorials), but the interactive
nature of the courseware, especially for numerical problem solving,
is very attractive to the students, particularly to those with a weak
chemistry background. As the courseware is based upon UCC-type
examination questions and also reflects the UCC lecturer’s approach
to his teaching, the tutorials are not 100% transferable to other
third-level institutions, but the physical chemistry tutorials are avail-
able from the authors to illustrate the approach taken in writing
the courseware and are available free of charge on the Internet
at URL: http://www .cf. ac. uk/uwcc/chem y/murphybm/bm 1. html. This
generally follows the approach of the individual chapters in the
present text and, in any case, the authors firmly believe that the best
courseware should be written in-house, to best reflect the approach
of the course lecturer involved.
One final point. This text is based on the current first-year science
chemistry course of a four-year B.Sc. degree course taken at Uni-
versity College Cork. The majority of students taking this course are
non-intending chemists. Although the text covers most of the main
areas of a typical general chemistry course, the authors do not claim in
any way that this material is the most appropriate for such a course;
indeed, many universities may include topics such as spectroscopy in
such a course, and may prefer to change the order of the subjects
taught. This, however, is not the purpose of this text. For example, the
two chapters on kinetics are relegated to the end of the text, as the
authors have found that students have trouble with some of the maths
in this section. Also, the two chapters on electrochemistry are slightly
expanded, since many students have expressed concern over the
presentation of such material in other texts. So, in conclusion, this text
is in many senses in response to the needs of the non-intending
chemistry students who have struggled for far too long in physical
chemistry at this level. However, it is hoped that lecturers and teachers