It is gratifying to launch the third edition of our book. Its coming to life testi?es about the task it has ful?lled in the service of the com- nity of chemical research and learning. As we noted in the Prefaces to the ?rst and second editions; our book surveys chemistry from the point of view of symmetry. We present many examples from ch- istry as well as from other ?elds to emphasize the unifying nature of the symmetry concept. Our aim has been to provide aesthetic pl- sure in addition to learning experience. In our ?rst Preface we paid tribute to two books in particular from which we learned a great deal; they have in?uenced signi?cantly our approach to the subject matter of our book. They are Weylrsquo;s classic; Symmetry; and Shubnikov and Koptsikrsquo;s Symmetry in Science and Art. The structure of our book has not changed. Following the Int- duction (Chapter 1); Chapter 2 presents the simplest symmetries using chemical and non-chemical examples. Molecular geometry is discussed in Chapter 3. The next four chapters present gro- theoretical methods (Chapter 4) and; based on them; discussions of molecular vibrations (Chapter 5); electronic structures (Chapter 6); and chemical reactions (Chapter 7). For the last two chapters we return to a qualitative treatment and introduce space-group sym- tries (Chapter 8); concluding with crystal structures (Chapter 9). For the third edition we have further revised and streamlined our text and renewed the illustrative material.
#4472213 in eBooks 2012-01-16 2012-01-16File Name: B007AQQA0Q
Review
