Page 18 - Physical chemistry understanding our chemical world

PREFACE xvii

teacher of physical chemistry, I have found the approaches and examples here to be
effective with students of HND and the early years of BSc and MChem courses. It has
been written for students having the basic chemical and mathematical skills generally
expected of university entrants, such as rearrangement of elementary algebra and a
little calculus. It will augment the skills of other, more advanced, students.
To reiterate, this book supplies no more than an introduction to physical chemistry,
and is not an attempt to cover the whole topic. Those students who have learned
some physical chemistry are invited to expand their vision by reading more special-
ized works. The inconsistencies and simplifications wrought by lack of space and
style in this text will be readily overcome by copious background reading. A com-
prehensive bibliography is therefore included at the end of the book. Copies of the
figures and bibliography, as well as live links can be found on the book’s website at
http://www.wileyeurope.com/go/monkphysical.

Acknowledgements

One of the more pleasing aspects of writing a text such as this is the opportunity to
thank so many people for their help. It is a genuine pleasure to thank Professor S´ eamus
Higson of Cranfield University, Dr Roger Mortimer of Loughborough University,
and Dr Michele Edge, Dr David Johnson, Dr Chris Rego and Dr Brian Wardle from
my own department, each of whom read all or part of the manuscript, and whose
comments have been so helpful.
A particular ‘thank you’ to Mrs Eleanor Riches, formerly a high-school teacher,
who read the entire manuscript and made many perceptive and helpful comments.
I would like to thank the many students from my department who not only saw
much of this material, originally in the form of handouts, but whose comments helped
shape the material into its present form.
Please allow me to thank Michael Kaufman of The Campaign for a Hydrogen Econ-
omy (formerly the Hydrogen Association of UK and Ireland) for helpful discussions
to clarify the arguments in Chapter 7, and the Tin Research Council for their help in
constructing some of the arguments early in Chapter 5.
Concerning permission to reproduce figures, I am indebted to The Royal Society of
Chemistry for Figures 1.8 and 8.26, the Open University Press for Figure 7.10, Else-
vier Science for Figures 4.7 and 10.3, and John Wiley & Sons for Figures 7.19, 10.11
and 10.14. Professor Robin Clarke FRS of University College London has graciously
allowed the reproduction of Figure 9.28.
Finally, please allow me to thank Dr Andy Slade, Commissioning Editor of Wiley,
and the copy and production editors Rachael Ballard and Robert Hambrook. A special
thank you, too, to Pete Lewis.

Paul Monk
Department of Chemistry & Materials
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester