 The textbook is excellent and any good professor can teach
physical chemistry from it. It is well organized, starting with some basic thermodynamics
background and moving to more complicated thermo. The next section is kinetics, which is
also presented not nearly as well as the thermo, but Atkins does a good job nonetheless.
Spectroscopy and statistical mechanics come next and although they are not simple to
understand, Atkins is concise in his presentation. The remainder of the book is additional
material which may or may not be covered in a physical chemistry course. What should also
be noted are the appendices at the end. Atkins includes very helpful supplemental material
in mathematics which is needed for the thermodynamics discussion. The tables are somewhat
lacking, but any good reference book can supplement this information. Overall, I would say
the book is well worth the money and I have yet to see another physical chemistry text
which contains as much information as well presented as it is. |