General Books

Chemistry for Changing Times, 11th Edition

John W. Hill, Doris K. Kolb

Amazon Price: $102.40 List Price: $128.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Prentice Hall Amazon Marketplace: 60 new & used starting at $84.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Best of the liberal arts texts 4 out of 5 stars.
19 of 20 people found this review helpful.

There are two people that would be interested in this book - those that are enrolled in a liberal arts chemistry course, and those that are just interested in learning about chemistry. This book suits either type of person admirably.

While setting up a liberal arts course in chemistry (i.e., Chemistry for Non-science Majors), we previewed a number of possible texts. This one, in my mind, stood above all the others that I looked at. There are a number of reasons why:

1. The scope - this book covers a vast number of topics, from basic structure of the atom to environmental chemistry to toxins and drugs to combustion and energy. We are designing a survey course, and this spread is ideal. Other texts tended to focus too much, especially on environmental issues (e.g., the ACS's Chemistry in Context).

2. Descriptive, non-mathmatical. Since this course has no prerequisites, not even grade 10 math, we needed a book that minimised mathematics. Other books, such as Kelter/Carr/Scott's Chemistry: World of Choices, was too mathematical for this type of course.

3. The pictures - this book simply looks good.

Thus, if you're looking for a text for a liberal arts chemistry course, or if you just want to know more about chemistry and are not mathematically inclined, I would recommend this book.

Editorial Review:

This popular book is a useful and interesting read for the layperson, as it is colorful, conversational in tone, and easily understandable. Knowledge of chemistry leads to better understanding about the hazards and benefits of this world, enabling better personal decision-making. Explores the concept of green chemistry throughout. Extensively revises key subject areas such as Energy, Fitness and Health, and Drugs. Features new color photographs and diagrams throughout to help readers visualize chemical phenomena. Personalizes chemistry for today's reader, encouraging a focus on evaluating information about real-life issues rather than memorizing rigorous theory and mathematics. For anyone interested in learning about chemistry and its effect upon our everyday lives.

Pocket Ref

Thomas J. Glover

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 91 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

a book that everyone should have 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My husband has this book and uses it frequently. It is all kinds of useful information and conversion charts. My 14 year old thought this would be a good thing to keep in her backpack, it is like carrying an encyclopedia of math and science information packed away in a small book.

Bets book ever! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The "Pocket Ref." is a must have for anyone that lives and breaths. The information in this book is invaluable. I highly recommend this book to anyone & everyone that has a desire to be prepared for any situation. This book has it all, from first aid, automotive, geology, carpentry& construction and even world zip codas. Anything you will ever want to know. This book would make a great gift for students from grade school to collage or any professional. It is a must buy, well worth the small price tag for what you get. Order one and see for your self. You wont be disappointed!

Editorial Review:

This great little book is a concise all-purpose reference featuring hundreds of tables, maps, formulas, constants & conversions AND it still fits in your shirt pocket! Goes where you go!

How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: 6th Edition (How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper (Day))

Robert A. Day, Barbara Gastel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

To be useful, scientific research needs to be explained clearly to others--to colleagues, to administrators, to foundations and governmental bodies, and to the public. This thoroughly revised edition of the classic How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper gives beginning scientists and experienced researchers alike practical advice on writing about their work and publishing what they write. The core of the book consists of a "how-to" guide to writing and publishing research articles for scientific journals, explaining every step of the process, from choosing a suitable journal for your work to presenting the results and citing references. In addition to the information on writing for scientific journals, this book provides additional advice for the scientist of the 21st century:

What ethical issues are important in scientific publishing?

What should a scientist know about rights and permissions?

How does a scientist write a grant proposal, or prepare progress reports for administrators?

What should a scientist know to work well with the media, or to write for a general audience? All of this practical information makes How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper the essential guide that scientists need for succeeding in the competitive environment of today.

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

Natalie Angier

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

not amused 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

"Too cute by far" is a better title for a review, but I see it's already taken. If you like Ms Angier's articles in the NY Times, as I usually do, you will be disappointed in this book. If the tone in those articles is as grating as in this book, maybe I didn't notice because they are so much shorter. After 50 pages I was ready to pull my hair out with all the flippant asides.

Editorial Review:

In this exuberant book, the best-selling author Natalie Angier distills the scientific canon to the absolute essentials, delivering an entertaining and inspiring one-stop science education. Angier interviewed a host of scientists, posing the simple question "What do you wish everyone knew about your field?" The Canon provides their answers, taking readers on a joyride through the fascinating fundamentals of the incredible world around us and revealing how they are relevant to us every day. Angier proves a rabble-rousing, wisecracking, deeply committed tour guide in her irresistible exploration of the scientific process and the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, cellular and molecular biology, geology, and astronomy. Even science-phobes will find her passion infectious as she strives "to make the invisible visible, the distant neighborly, the ineffable affable."

Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos: With Applications to Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Engineering

Steven H. Strogatz

Amazon Price: $49.50 List Price: $55.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Westview Press Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $43.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This textbook is aimed at newcomers to nonlinear dynamics and chaos, especially students taking a first course in the subject. The presentation stresses analytical methods, concrete examples and geometric intuition. The theory is developed systematically, starting with first-order differential equations and their bifurcations, followed by phase plane analysis, limit cycles and their bifurcations, and culminating with the Lorenz equations, chaos, iterated maps, period doubling, renormalization, fractals, and strange attractors.A unique feature of the book is its emphasis on applications. These include mechanical vibrations, lasers, biological rhythms, superconducting circuits, insect outbreaks, chemical oscillators, genetic control systems, chaotic waterwheels, and even a technique for using chaos to send secret messages. In each case, the scientific background is explained at an elementary level and closely integrated with the mathematical theory.Richly illustrated, and with many exercises and worked examples, this book is ideal for an introductory course at the junior/senior or first-year graduate level. It is also ideal for the scientist who has not had formal instruction in nonlinear dynamics, but who now desires to begin informal study. The prerequisites are multivariable calculus and introductory physics.

The ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information (An American Chemical Society Publication)

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the time since the second edition of The ACS Style Guide was published, the rapid growth of electronic communication has dramatically changed the scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publication world. This dynamic mode of dissemination is enabling scientists, engineers, and medical practitioners all over the world to obtain and transmit information quickly and easily. An essential constant in this changing environment is the requirement that information remain accurate, clear, unambiguous, and ethically sound.
This extensive revision of The ACS Style Guide thoroughly examines electronic tools now available to assist STM writers in preparing manuscripts and communicating with publishers. Valuable updates include discussions of markup languages, citation of electronic sources, online submission of manuscripts, and preparation of figures, tables, and structures. In keeping current with the changing environment, this edition also contains references to many resources on the internet.
With this wealth of new information, The ACS Style Guide's Third Edition continues its long tradition of providing invaluable insight on ethics in scientific communication, the editorial process, copyright, conventions in chemistry, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and writing style for any STM author, reviewer, or editor. The Third Edition is the definitive source for all information needed to write, review, submit, and edit scholarly and scientific manuscripts.

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Edward O. Wilson, Edward Osborne Wilson

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Total reviews: 149 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The biologist Edward O. Wilson is a rare scientist: having over a long career made signal contributions to population genetics, evolutionary biology, entomology, and ethology, he has also steeped himself in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences. The result of his lifelong, wide-ranging investigations is Consilience (the word means "a jumping together," in this case of the many branches of human knowledge), a wonderfully broad study that encourages scholars to bridge the many gaps that yawn between and within the cultures of science and the arts. No such gaps should exist, Wilson maintains, for the sciences, humanities, and arts have a common goal: to give understanding a purpose, to lend to us all "a conviction, far deeper than a mere working proposition, that the world is orderly and can be explained by a small number of natural laws." In making his synthetic argument, Wilson examines the ways (rightly and wrongly) in which science is done, puzzles over the postmodernist debates now sweeping academia, and proposes thought-provoking ideas about religion and human nature. He turns to the great evolutionary biologists and the scholars of the Enlightenment for case studies of science properly conducted, considers the life cycles of ants and mountain lions, and presses, again and again, for rigor and vigor to be brought to bear on our search for meaning. The time is right, he suggests, for us to understand more fully that quest for knowledge, for "Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become." Wilson's wisdom, eloquently expressed in the pages of this grand and lively summing-up, will be of much help in that search.

Don't Know Much About Geography: Everything You Need to Know About the World but Never Learned

Kenneth C. Davis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Dry and boring 1 out of 5 stars.
15 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I thought this book might be interesting for my class (I'm a Geography High school teacher). Now, I've read many a dull tome on Geography in my many years. At least they were informative, mistake free and educational. Unfortunately, I cannot say say the same for this drivel. Not only is it dumbed down but, it is still dry and boring. I was drifting off while reading it (and I love geography - can't get enough of it!). There are mistakes a plenty. Not only the ones mentioned before, but I found 'facts' cotradicting themselves in the same chapter. In short; dry, boring, mistake ridden and dated.

Editorial Review:

Davis consistently does what your junior high teacher probably didn't; he makes geography amusing and riveting. From early concepts of whether the world was a disk floating in water (Thales) or pear-shaped (Columbus), Davis explains earthquakes, rain forests, Atlantis and whether there are canaries on the Canary Islands. In short, he covers the scientific, physical, and political history of the Earth and does his level best to raise our collective geographic IQ while entertaining us.

Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century

Michio Kaku

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Total reviews: 63 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Take it easy: that's Michio Kaku's motto. Given the extraordinary advances science has thrown up in time for the millennium, the only way you could possibly fit them into a single volume is by a correspondingly massive simplification.

Subtitled How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond, Visions assumes that, by and large, scientists get to do whatever they like, that all technologies are consumer technologies, and that consumers welcome anything and everything science throws at them. Kaku gets away with this frankly dodgy strategy by dint of sheer hard work. He has based his predictions on interviews with more than 150 renowned working scientists; he integrates these interviews with a huge body of original journalistic material; and, above all, he roots that mass of information on an entirely reasonable model of what the purpose of science will be in the third millennium. Up until now, science has expended its efforts on decoding most of the fundamental natural processes--"the dance," as Kaku puts it, of elementary particles deep inside stars and the rhythms of DNA molecules coiling and uncoiling within our bodies. Science's task now, Kaku believes, is to cross-pollinate advances thrown up by the study of matter, biology, and mind--modern science's three main theaters of endeavor. "We are now making the transition from amateur chess players to grand masters," he writes, "from observers to choreographers of nature." Then again, he also believes that "the Internet ... will eventually become a 'Magic Mirror' that appears in fairy tales, able to speak with the wisdom of the human race." Kaku, in short, deserves a good slapping--but he also deserves to be read. --Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk

Atlas and Dissection Guide for Comparative Anatomy

Saul Wischnitzer

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