INTRODUCTORY CHEMISTRY PROBLEMS

The essential point of the book is to show students in Introductory Chemistry classes how to obtain answers that are at least reasonable, and to realize when there must have been an error because the answer falls outside the range of possible values. Students often leave ridiculous answers because they simply plug into equations they have memorized (correctly or incorrectly). They have not learned to think about the meaning of the numbers that appear in their calculations. This book attempts to show students how to correct this.

Contents:

• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 'Reasonable Answers?'
• Some Convenient Arithmetic Operations
• Part One: Dimensional Analysis and Units
• Part Two: The Standard International (SI) System of Units
• Atomic Mass and Molecular Mass
• Gases
• Stoichiometry
• Atomic Structure and Spectra
• Solids and Unit Cells
• Solution Calculations
• Chemical Equilibrium with Equilibrium Constants K_eq, K_c, K_p
• Thermochemistry: Basic Ideas of Thermodynamics; The Background of the Calculations on Equilibrium
• Solubility
• Acids, Bases, and pH
• Chemical Kinetics
• Electrochemistry
• Nuclear Chemistry
• Epilogue
• Appendix: An Extra Problem, with Some Extra
• Complications
• Index

Readership: Primary audience: Introductory chemistry students; Other introductory science course students. Secondary audience: Teachers of introductory chemistry, and other science courses.