BOOK R E V I E W S = TaS. Trouton's rule is ~resented, together with a discussion of the abnormally high entropy of vaporization of water. Chemical interpretations are also offered far the free energies of formation of water, ammonia, methane, the hydrogen halides, and aliphatic hydrocarbons; and for the increase in entropy that accompanies the formation of water molecules and certain insoluble compounds from their ions. Finally, there is an examination of the effect which variations in temperatme have on reaction feasibility in terms of the separate effects of the enthalpy and entropy terms. Teachers already know--or should know-the previously issued paperbacks on thermodynamics (Nash, reviewed in THIS JOURNAL 40, 51 [19631, and Mahan, 41, 56 [1964]). reviewed in THIS JOURNAL These books accomplish all that one could expect in a poekei4eed volume on thermodynamics for firsbyear students who are competent in the elementary operations of the calculus. I n writing "Chemical Energy," Strong and Stratton have demonstrated that it is possible to develop meaningful thermodynamic thinking with only a. knowledge of algebra.
0 so that AH
LAWRENCE P. EBLIN Ohio University Athens
A466
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Journal of Chemical Education
Laboratory Chemistry
Therald MoeUer, University of Illinois, Urbans, and Dean F. Marlin, University of South Florida, Tampa. D. C. Heath and Co., Boston, 1965. viii + 279 pp. Figs. and tables. 21 x 28 em. $4.50. Few chemistry teachers w o d d disagree with the authors' t h ~ e s ,stated in the preface, that laboratory instruction is a significant part of the total instruction in chemistry, and that the introduction to the laboratory should come when the student begins his study of chemistry. The authors also feel that the experiments should he "primarily instructive, interesting, and challenging," a worthy aim whieh the present manual seems to fulfill reasonably well. Thifi laboratory manual is designed to accompany the textbook, "University Chemistry," by Bailar, Moeller, and Kleinherg, or any general chemistry text which covers the usual area,? of general chemistry. For those who are seeking a manual which departs redioelly from the traditional, or which encourages the student to devise his own methods and procedures, the search must turn elsewhere. "Laboratory Chemistry" offers a conservative set of experiments with principles and instructions outlined in considerable detail and, for the most part, with clarity. This reviewer recalls the laboratory manual of Professor B. Smith Hopkins whieh was widely used thirty years or so
ago. Many of the experiments of Hopkind book were uniquely effective in cl~allenging t h e freshman ntndcnts' interest. The present book is quite obviously a modified descendant of the older manual, far far more than a faint family resemblance is readily discerned in both the organization and the content of the experiments. A comparison of the present manual with another direct descendant of Hopkina' originsl book, i.e., "Laboratory and Classroom Exercises in General Chemistry" (sixth edition) by Hopkins, Moeller, and Tamres, shows that most of the experiment3 areessentially the same even to detail? oi wording. However, the material has been cansiderahly reorganieed and some new experiments have been added. The 110 short experimenbs in Hopkins, Moeller, and Tamres have been consolidated into 34. Each experiment k preceded by a brief statement of the principle involved, and appropriate thaught-provoking q u e s tions have been added. Tear-out report sheets, perforated for a ring binder, accompany each experiment. The 34 experiments are grouped under six headings (the number of experiments in each category k indicated): Basic Techniques and Concepts ( 9 ) ; The States of Matter (5); The Chemistry of Selected Nonmetals (7); Catalysis, Rate and Equilibrium (4); The Chemistry of Selected Metals (6); Preparative Inorganic Chemistry (3). (Continued o n page A468)
BOOK REVIEWS Instructions for the qualitative analysis of the 24 o s ~ ~ scations l are included. Thioacetamide is employed in the sulfide precipitations, and the scale is semimicro. Several of the other experiment,^ which were presented on the macro scale in the earlier books have been changed to semimicro, and the quantitative experiments have been sharpened, hoth by improving the precision of weighing and the techniques of manipulation. A final section is devoted to chemical arithmetic, in which the dimensional
approach is empha~ized. Nineteen pages of model examples, wit,h 1.54 problems to solve, meinclnded in this section. Appendices include many useful tables of constants and data, ZL? well as a fourplace table of logarithms, lists of chemicals and apparatus, and instructions for preparation of reagent solutions. For those who wish to present a sound laboratory course which does not depart far from the traditional, but which should prove hoth stimulaling and instructive, Moeller and Martins' book deserves serious consideration.
GAAXTW. SMITH Pennsvlvania State Unive~sitr, University Park
Explorations in Chemistry
Charles A. G ~ a yF, M C Corp., Princeton, New Jersey. E. P. Dutton and Ca., Inc., New York, 1965. 221 pp. Figs. and tables. 17.5 X 25 cm. S5.95. This is a hook written for potential readers rather different from lhose for most volumes reviewed in these pages, but it is one which might. have been of much interest to many teachers. As pointed out in a foreword hy H i l a g Ueasou, director of the library program of the AAAS, the growing emphasis in the lower grades on laboratory work and the experimental aspects of science is encouraging more and more students to try work on their own initiative. These youngsters need more solid fare than the "experiment hooks" which have been produced in the past twenty-five years or so. This book hits, therefore, been written primarily for bay or girl chemists who like to do experiments a t home but it is also suggested as one whieh non-specialist adults and elementary s c h o ~teachers l can enjoy. The first part of the book is well-organised, with the first section covering suggestions for setting up and supplying a laboratory and t,he second summarizing precsution3. The Istter is somewhat weak with regard to precautions in handling fumes. The youngster is cautioned to have "good ventilation," but it is doubtful that he will grasp off-hand what this really means when trying certain of the e ~ ~ e r i m e n l s s u cas h one which involves the reaction of ropper and nitric acid. The main text is, however, puzzling. Part I1 is 8. &page section on Fundamentals of Chemistry, which covers chemical not,at,ion and equations, the periodic table and valence, atomic structure, and chemietll bonding. Part 111, entitled General and Physical Chemistry, includes a chapter on Laboratory Teehnique, plus chapters on Solids, Liquids, and Gases; Solutions; and Chemical Equilibrium. The latter chapters indude some suggested experimelrta. Part 11' is entitled The Elements and Their Campounds and includes "chapters" for the various groups of the periodic table. Suggested experiments are intermingled with discussion. The Boron Family, for example, is a three-page chapter which presents the family by means of the ethyl borate flame test far boric acid, reactions of aluminum with arids and bases, precipitation of some duminum rarnpounds, and crystallization of alum-plus a few sentences of descriptive mst,erinl. There is also a chapter on Organic Chemistry (17 pages-including structural formulas, functional groups, isomerism, fats, sugars nroteins. etc.1. Part V is on eleven Adcalorimetry. I t is not clear what t.we of reader the book is really to serve. The discussion sections me of necessity very sketchy and in some instances weak as well. (The presentation of atomic structure and bond(Cmlinued on page A470)
A468
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Journol of Chemical Education
