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Book PrefaceWe wrote Understanding Chemistry specially for students taking chemistry for the first time, either in high school or college. It is not a textbook in the conventional sense because it does not have the encyclopedic coverage of topics that you will find in a general chemistry text. We have carefully selected areas that we believe are essential for building a sound foundation for learning and understanding chemistry. Because students are often intimidated by chemistry and by chemistry textbooks, we have used a number of strategies to make this book readable, user friendly, and pedagogically effective: familiar analogies to help explain abstract ideas; cartoons (created and drawn by Chip Lovett) to help students visualize chemical processes at the molecular level and to provide some comic relief in the learning process; and portraits of scientists describing their important discoveries to add a personal touch and to serve as a useful tool for remembering facts and concepts.
Because problem-solving is a major part in learning chemistry, we have provided a number of worked examples in the text. To learn how to solve problems you must practice a lot so we have created a web site (www.understandingchemistry.com) with many worked examples and problems, as well as further discussion of topics. You will also find numerous colored molecular models and animations on the web that will help you visualize the three-dimensionality of molecules and chemical reactions.
We hope you will find that this book is just what you need to get the most out of your introductory chemistry course, to help you understand concepts and to do well on tests, and finally, to appreciate what a fascinating subject chemistry really is.
Chip Lovett
Raymond Chang
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2005 McGraw-Hill Higher Education