Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Physical Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: tezha on September 27, 2011, 12:05:00 PM
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Hi, I am a second year undergraduate chemistry student who really enjoys organic chemistry and analytic chemistry, however, this year was the first time I had a real encounter with the role of quantum mechanics in chemistry, what we are studying is the application of this field for spectra, orbitals, MO's etc. I have a very vague experience in physics from my high school studies, therefore I'm not familiar with quite a lot of terms and it's hard for me to understand the equations which are based on physical principles. For example, now we are discussing black body radiation and ultraviolet catastrophe and even that, although should be quite simple, is really hard for me to understand. Can you please suggest any reading material (physics textbooks etc) that would give me a sufficient background for understanding the quantum mechanical basis of chemistry, I am willing to devote quite a lot of time to this particular topic so i'm not looking for any for dummies" shortcuts. Thank you :)
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McQuarrie Quantum Chemistry is a pretty good intro level book.
For a deep understanding of blackbody radiation and such, in the context of quantum mechanics, you need a good background in classical mechanics because what they are doing by introducing those topics is demonstrating where classical mechanics failed. If you don't understand it classically, then it's really not that important, in general.
To that end, Taylor Mechanics is good.
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I am in the middle of my first semester of physical chemistry and I wish I had read this book before the semester began:
Introductory Quantum Physics and Relativity by Vlatko Vedral
I picked this up in the library as I was desperate for an alternate description of the matter.
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This book is free and contains good explanations. It will help you understand, but not master.
http://motionmountain.net/