Computer-Based Studies for Physical Chemistry Gordon M. Banow, Milne Press, P.O. Box 1246, Carmel Valley, CA 93924. 1982. Hardware: Apple II. 48K, graphics printer Software: DOS 3.3. Appleson Components: 17 Diskenes, sample printouts. instructors guide Level and Subject: Physical chemistry Cost: $500 Summary Rallngs: Reviewer Reviewer I1 Category I good excellenta Ease of use Subjectmaffer excellent gwd content Pedagogic value excellent gwd Student reaction excellent excellent provided the tala1 enwduriw printing Is Corrected.
Review I Gordon Barrow's extensive set of programs for the typical undergraduate physical chemistry course is a refreshing and useful departure from the kinds of instructional programs that have become available the past several years. A i d e from utilitarian programs that help with mathematical analyses, plotting, statistics, and similar activities, and a few programs that simulate laboratory experiments using student input to determine the experimental outcome, most of the materials that have been orduced commerciallv lor < hemistry courses h a w heen dr4gnt.u in ;I questiomanw~rfurmat with varying drgrees of tutorial branching to accommodate student errors. In most of these exercises, the student responds to specific questions with names, formulas, specific calculations, or a multiple-choice selection. In contrast, Barehemistrv,oroerams could be row's ohvsical , .. Ihwkrd upon as an rrtensivc data bas? uf phy5ical dam and mathrmatical mudels from whi, h n student can produce graphical conrparisons of macroscopic and microscopic molecular properties of almost any sort. Features and Intent. The philosophy that guided Barrow to develop these materials (see this Journal. 57.697 (1980)) reeoenizes that
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physically meaningful relationships from complicated mathematical expressions. Attempts to make these comparisons in textbooks is limited by the space available and cost for extensive illustrations. The aim of these programs is to allow students to explore on their own a large variety of properties and physical models so that they will better understand not only the behavior of matter hut also the interplay among models that have been constructed to describe and explain this behavior. The entire set consists of 101 different programs on 17 diskettes. The programs on a sin& disk are related conceptually and, although the amtent nnu cmpha\>i d m r r from unc program tu another. .ill h w r d common format that, once learned, makes them easy to use. This can he illustrated with first disk, GAS-PVT. When thedisk is booted. amenu appears from which the student c& select a program. The selection of VAN DER WAALS ISOTHERMS, for example, hrings up a brief introduction to the topic, which can he omitted if desired. Given values for the van der Waals constants, o and b, and a temperature che program plots a graph uf I' VW,US V as pred~ctedhy thp v m dtr \\'ad. cquatim and aisuan )deal m i PV ia,thrrnl. ('urws fur other temperatur& can be added to the graph and the graph can he saved an a printer for the student to take away if desired. Almost immediately, students can prduee many comparisons that may not have been developed or illustrated in the text. They can use values for van der Waals constants for actual eases taken from tables and see how any of these gases brhawa. They nld~,r a n ~rl-t arh~tra~ilyany numh~rsruseerrhat the r r f n u null1 be. I t is very hkrly that in this way the student will come to appreciate how these parameters are related to physical properties and why they are interpreted in the ways we ,me them. feature of these A oarticularlv. imoortant . programs isonr that less p r ~ t ~ ~studenti ~rnt findrxtremrly irustraringat first bur uhivh i s m impurtar>taid to heping them ubta~na better perspective on the relationships they are handling. Before the program draws any graph it always asks the user to select numerical values to put on scales on the axes. The first time around, hints or suggestions are given as to appropriate values to use.
Reviewed in this Issue
Often a student will never have given a thought to the magnitudes of either macroscopic properties like pressure and volume or derived quantities such as compressibility. These programs force such thinking. Furthermore, once a graph is drawn, students can change the scales, expanding or compressing the curves to show better overall hehavior or to examine better behavior in a particular region. This feature not only is extremely useful if one simply wants to explore relationships in detail hut also it proves to he an effective way to guide the students into thinking more carefully about the phenomena they are examining. All of the programs in the set follow this format excent for a few that simolv . . d. o t the r~iulLv01 a particular cxpcriment or andysls. Each disk tontainr a set of progmms thst rmge i n m the simplest kind of relatiunhipa tc, mure wmplex descriptions. For rrample. rhr first twoprr,gram%ontheGA5-PVTrlrsk olut itmule ideal gas I]\' isothmns, u n ~ ~ i m w l at having the student verify the ideal gas law, the other to verify or discover the relationships that lead to defining the Kelvin temperature scale. These are followed by the VAN DER WAALS program just described. Next come two programs on COMPRESSIBILITY. In the first of these, entering van der Wads constants and T leads to a plot of z (= PViRT) versus P. Again the effect of all these oarameters can be comoared bv entering appruprinre values. In thr srwnd, the student pick.; onr of 10nvtual gasrinnd m e fuur equations of statr. The prowam p10t.i r equnthe predicted r versus I'curw f ~ rhr twn uf S131r selrctrd dung wlth th? nrtual rumt~rrsiilrilitvhrha\,ior ot the gas aelerted. By changing the scales on the axes d l sorts of comparisons can he uncovered. The last program on this disk is FUGACITY OF GASES in which entering values for the critical pressure and critical temperature leads to a graph of (fugaeitylpressure) versus
..Subject Matter. The range of topics covP
ered by the set is impressive. The disk titles and a very brief indication of the nature of
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Reviewer
Computer Learning Package Review Gordon M. Earrow, Computer-Based Studies for Physical Chemistry
Jeff C. Davis, Jr.
A205
Ronald D. Poshusta
Books Michael ModellandRobert C. Reid, Thermodynamics and Its Applications, Second Edition Walter J. Moore, Basic Physical Chemistry MichaelD. Ryan and Quintus Fernando, Calculations in Analytical Chemistry Frank A. Bovey andLynn W. Jelinski. Chain Structure and Conformation of Macromolecules Monographs
Frank C. Andrews
A208
J a m e s E. Finholt R. W. Ramette Charles E. Carraher, Jr.
A208 A208 A209
Volume 61
A209
Number 7
July 1984
A205
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their contents are: GAS-PVT (described above), KINETIC MOLECULAR THEORY (one-, two-, and three-dimensional speed and energy distributions), INTERMOLECULAR INTERACTIONS (relationships between Lennard-Jones and square-well potentials with virial coefficients and molecular trajectories during collisions), HEAT AND HEAT CAPACITY (harmonic and anharmonic oscillator and rigid rotor effects on heat capacity, Einstein-Dehye heat capacities, heats of reactionas affected by temperature), EXPANSIONS AND COMPRESSIONS (PV plots for isothermal, adiabatic, rrvrrs~blr. rrreversilllr rxpansions, and 1'0 cwnprcssiuns). INTHOUI!I"I'IOK A ' I S T C A , THEHhlODYNAMICS (Boltzmann distributions, prohahilities, partition functions, total energy, heat capacity, and entropy relations), ENTROPY (translational, rotational, vibrational, and total entropies), PHASE EQUILIBRIA (ideal and non-ideal vapor pressures of liquid solutions, hp diagrams, distillation and theoretical plates, eutectic mixtures), FREE ENERGY and EQUILIBRIA (relations between graphit Add T O QUANTUM MECHA uncertainty principle, particle on a line and particle in a box energies, wave functions, and probability distributions, H-atom probability functions. multi-electron atom orobabilitv d~\trlbutionfunrticms). IN'~Ho~)uc"~Io'I 'I'O SI'F.CTROS(.'OPY thlarklwdy, rotational K ' j and ..pectra, vibrational E'Jand spectra, rot-vib spectrum, spectral presentations), BOND ENERGY (harmonic and anhannoniv uscillstcrr potential, and rnrryier compared, hlww p
