Chemical Education Today edited by
Book & Media Reviews
Jeffrey Kovac University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics in Chemistry by Mark A. Ratner and George C. Schatz Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2001. x + 305 pp. ISBN 0-13-895491-7. $91.00. reviewed by Andrew J. Pounds
While there are numerous excellent undergraduate physical chemistry texts, few seek to take undergraduates into the depths of quantum mechanics and most graduate-level texts in quantum mechanics require a sophistication in mathematics and physics that many students lack. The book by Ratner and Schatz entitled Introduction to Quantum Mechanics in Chemistry is rare in that it picks up from what one might learn in junior-level physical chemistry regarding quantum mechanics and advances students to the point where they can understand the current literature of quantum chemistry and apply quantum mechanical methods to solve current problems. The text can be broken into four sections: fundamentals of quantum mechanics, the application of these methods to the treatment of atoms and molecules, modern methods of computational quantum chemistry, and the application of modern methods to larger questions of electronic structure and spectroscopy. Much of the information found in the first section (Chapters 1 through 5) can be found, partly or wholly covered, in standard physical chemistry texts. The topics include model one-, two-, and three-dimensional box potentials, the rigid rotor, and the harmonic oscillator. In the next section (Chapters 6 through 10), where more of the information is unfamiliar to undergraduates who have only completed physical chemistry, Ratner and Schatz introduce LCAO–MO theory and then progress to writing the full coulomb and exchange integrals for the hydrogen molecule. With this formalism in place, they move to the next section (Chapters 11 and 12), which deals with
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ab initio, density functional, and semiempirical methods. The Fock operator is quickly introduced in Chapter 11 and basis functions follow shortly thereafter. The remainder of the section describes other methods and how they differ from or improve upon self-consistent Hartree–Fock theory. The final section begins with a chapter on group theory and its use in solving problems in molecular quantum mechanics. The last two chapters are dedicated to the application of electronic structure theory methods to structural, energetic, and spectroscopic properties of molecules and reactions. Four appendices containing mathematical information, character tables, energy units, and conversion factors follow the main text. What sets this book apart from many others is that it contains a number of end-of-chapter problems, with detailed solutions, many of which involve the use of standard quantum chemistry packages. While the chapter descriptions may be brief, a student can gain insight into both the methods and the power of modern quantum mechanical techniques by working through the problems. If the book has any shortcoming it is that many of the sections are terse. The authors, however, provide excellent lists of references for those who want to extend their knowledge on a particular subject. Because the early chapters contain many topics that are covered in junior-level physical chemistry, this text could easily be used for an advanced undergraduate class in quantum chemistry. This is especially true if the purpose of the course is to move students to the point where they can use modern quantum chemistry packages in research projects. The authors state in the introduction that their goal is “to produce an introduction to quantum chemistry which can be used with ease by most chemists.’’ This is a fair assessment. Ratner and Schatz have written a text that pedagogically fits nicely between a junior-level physical chemistry text and advanced texts on quantum chemistry and electronic structure theory. Andrew J. Pounds is in the Department of Chemistry and Computer Science, Mercer University, Macon, GA 31207;
[email protected].
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 79 No. 4 April 2002 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
