with the idea that to succeed such a course must offer educational benefits clearly superior to what we presently have. The lack of depth in the course content, the potential to frustrate (or a t least slow) the user, and the many errors in the text materialall conspire against this program as the herald of a new age of computer-based education. Still, I am confident such a herald will soon arrive. I think intrwluet*,ry p o l p r r chrmistry would br an exrrilrnt subject area fur program sufficiently rich i n rontrnt and !lowing in execution to bemmea semester course in its own right. Given the many excellent qualities of IPC, perhaps an expanded and revised second edition will be the educational software system I hope someday to see. Buddy D. Ratner Depmment of Chemical Engineering University of Washington Seanle. WA 98195
crystallinity, reaction kinetics, degree of polymerization, and some techniques for measuring molecular weight. There is no description of ionic or coordination polymerizations. In order to accommodate the breadth of the topic, the authors have necessarily sacrificed depth. At institutions that offer regular polymer science courses as senior electives this lack of depth will make the programs less appealing. Furthermore, instructors at these schools will he unable to list or modify the programs to suit their needs. The chemistry is essentially accurate and the programs error free, but there are mistakes. In disk 2 a description of Teflon" ends "has a low coefficient of," The remainder of the sentence, although obvious, is missing. In disk 3 two obvious mistakes are Tgm = Tgm - k/Mn and 16 - 818 = .5. In disk 4, for polymers with molecular weight distributions greater than one, the program erroneously indicates Mw < Mn. There is a related misprint in a question on disk 7. On disk 6 in the derivation of the free radical rate equation, the rate constant for termination is expressed ) that termination by as (kt, k ~ implying combination and disproportionation are equally important in all systems, which is not true. Also "effect" should be "affeet"in disk 6, section 7. The programs were reviewed by a class of senior students who were in their third quarter of a three-quarter sequence in polymer scienee-clearly not the students for whom the programs were intended. Not surprisingly they found the level low and were able to proceed rapidly through the material. Several wondered about the need to include
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Introduction to Polymer Chemistry is a seven-disk comouter interactive short course drveloprd by The American Chrmirnl Sor:rty. i t is intended for individual study pre. sumably at instmtlms that dc nor rurrently offer courses in polymer science. Students are expected to know organic, but not physical chemistry. Six disks each contain five to seven lessons on various asoects of oolvmer chemistrv: - . the seventh dirk is a quiz over nil the matrrial. The Icrsmr are well pr~porcdand proceed in a logical mnnner. There are exrellmt ilmtrlations and animations including, for example, a random walk model of polymer conformation, viscosity experiments, osmotic pressure experiments, molecular entanglement, and molecular weight distribution. Each lesson disk ends with a review quiz of the covered material. The set of programs end with a 40-question quiz on all material covered. Separate doeumentation is provided hut is entirely unnecessary. The documentation is, in fact, little mare than a collection of review auestions. The operation of the programs is simple and straightforward. No knowledge of computers, short of having to know how to turn the Apple on, is required. All options are menu controlled and there are no special hardware requirements. The users are informed of all time-consuming procedures. No programming errors that influenced the operation of the program were detected. Polymer science, because of its great commercial importance and relative lack of attention in many chemistry curricula, is an excellent topic for a self-paced computerdirected course. The lessons in Introduction ta Polvmer Chemistrv instruct at a fundarnenrnl level and a\ such can hr t w d rlt any inst~tutionas part of the rxidnr: rwrsp, iurh ap rhr final :r -I wk of a tw
