Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews On Jeopardy!, the general-knowledge quiz show, the game’s miscellaneous category is titled “Potpourri”. This month’s book reviews are a “potpourri” for readers. Do you need a reference book about all of science? Check out the second edition of Encyclopedia of Scientific Principles, Laws, and Theories by Robert E. Krebs, reviewed by both a biologist and a chemist. Perhaps you are in the market for a comprehensive overview of general chemistry. Billy Adam Gottlieb’s Holy Holmium! Complete General Chemistry in 150 Pages promises a money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with its coverage. In the textbook department, Medicinal Chemistry: An Introduction by Gareth Thomas is an updated offering in a niche category. Finally, Arieh Ben-Naim’s Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced to Plain Common Sense may be just what you need to solidify your understanding of the topic. And the question is: What are September book reviews? Holy Holmium! Complete General Chemistry in 150 Pages (For High School, Business, and Life, with Solved Exam Problems and a M oney-Back Guarantee) by Billy Adam Gottlieb Available from http://www.Lulu.com (accessed May 2009), 2007. 170pp. ISBN 978-1435700819 (paper). $24.95 reviewed by Michael S. Matthews
Gottlieb has attempted an ambitious goal in presenting the complete content of general chemistry in a meaningful way in so few pages. (For readers who are counting, the book does meet the title’s goal: there are 146 content pages not counting the introductions, a few blank pages for notes, and the feedback/ rebate pages added at the end.) The manageable size of his book, at 19 × 24.5 cm and just over 1 cm thick, will surely appeal to those who are weary of lugging around a 5 kg chemistry textbook. Although there are a few minor areas that perhaps could be improved, for the most part I found this book surprisingly successful in achieving its stated purpose. The book is based on the author’s 14 years of experience in teaching and tutoring chemistry to students from a wide variety of backgrounds.1 The book is self published, and it was illustrated and laid out by the author. Gottlieb appears to have done an outstanding job of eliminating typographical or content errors, as I found neither; the occasional words ending in the British -our spelling come across as quirky rather than jarring to the reader accustomed to U.S. spelling conventions. The introduction touts this book as suitable for anyone and everyone who seeks to learn chemistry at the high school or early college level. I suspect it would prove most useful for those learners who already are relatively comfortable with mathematics (primarily algebra, although one section briefly mentions calculus). Just two pages near the beginning outline the basic mathematical procedures needed in the remainder of the book.
Near the end, a few more pages summarize the formulas and constants needed to complete many chemistry calculations. Chemistry students who already are working with a peer study group or a tutor to learn the subject, and those who are able to learn new material rapidly on their own with relatively little repetition, will find the content and structure of Holy Holmium! to be particularly useful. Teachers who wish to brush up on the general chemistry curriculum, or who are looking for varied ways of presenting this material to their students, will also find this book to be a valuable resource. The chemistry content in Holy Holmium! begins, as most chemistry texts do, with atoms, molecules, and the physical processes they undergo. By p 6 the reader already has been led into calculating emission spectra for hydrogen, and the next several pages lead into understanding and problem solving with moles, radioactive decay, and periodic trends. Figures are relatively few in number and are integrated in text rather than numbered separately, but when present they are drawn clearly (as in the depiction of crystal lattice structures on p 31). My only specific suggestion for improvement would be in the arrows on p 57, which are not depicted as cleanly as the arrows used on pp 49–52. The second half of the book moves to more advanced processes, with sections that cover equilibrium, thermodynamics, and kinetics. The pace remains brisk, and there is only one example provided to illustrate each problem variation. Narrative commentary between the worked problems often explains how the different problem variations are related and provides useful suggestions about what sorts of exam questions might be expected on each topic. I felt that the first section was somewhat abrupt in jumping right into the content, but after the first dozen or so pages, the pace settled into a more comfortable rhythm. It may be simply that it took me a few pages to become accustomed to the book’s format. Having additional subheadings, or perhaps indenting the existing italicized subheadings for greater prominence, might be sufficient to offset this perception of abruptness. Adding even a single color to the text’s present black and white format could also be helpful in providing visual cues to enhance the clarity of the transitions. Most of the topics are well integrated, but here and there it would be helpful if the author had provided additional connections linking information that appears in more than one place. For example, on p 3 one reads simply that “protons are heavier than electrons”, but the author does not explain why this fact is important until p 12; likewise, carbon is used on p 14 in diagramming electron orbital configuration in ions, but the hybrid nature of C orbitals is not mentioned until p 49. Connecting these sorts of examples, perhaps with footnotes, would help the
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 9 September 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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Chemical Education Today edited by
Cheryl Baldwin Frech University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
reader develop a more integrated understanding of the content. It certainly is more difficult to convey this type of relational knowledge within the linear format of a printed book, and I’m sure these connections would be offered routinely during tutoring in a face-to-face setting. I found the book’s coverage to be more comprehensive than I had thought possible from a text of this concise length. Organic chemistry is conspicuously absent as a topic, even though many general chemistry courses do contain a week or two of organic chemistry content, but Gottlieb does mention it as future coursework. Coverage in other areas appears to have addressed all the major points a student would be expected to understand in general chemistry, and I even learned a few things from this book that I somehow missed in the course of obtaining my own undergraduate chemistry degree. Given its reasonable cost and the author’s money-back guarantee, I feel comfortable in recommending Holy Holmium! as a useful resource.
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Note 1. The cover notes the author’s qualifications as an “Honours [sic] Chemistry graduate of Princeton University” and an “Environmental Toxicology graduate” of Concordia University, although for the latter degree it’s not clear which of the several institutions by this name he attended.
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Michael S. Matthews is in the Department of Special Education and Child Development, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223; Michael.matthews@uncc. edu.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 86 No. 9 September 2009 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • © Division of Chemical Education
