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This book is a rigorous, unified account of the fundamental principles of the density-functional theory of the electronic structure of matter and its applications to atoms and molecules. Containing a detailed discussion of the chemical potential and its derivatives, it provides an understanding of the concepts of electronegativity, hardness and softness, and chemical reactivity. Both the Hohenberg-Kohn-Sham and the Levy-Lieb derivations of the basic theorems are presented, and extensive references to the literature are included. Two introductory chapters and several appendices provide all the background material necessary beyond a knowledge of elementary quantum theory. The book is intended for physicists, chemists, and advanced students in chemistry.

The philosophy of chemistry has emerged in recent years as a new and autonomous field within the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. With the development of this new discipline, Eric Scerri and Grant Fisher’s “Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry” is a timely and definitive guide to all current thought in this field. This edited volume will serve to map out the distinctive features of the field and its connections to the philosophies of the natural sciences and general philosophy of science more broadly. It will be a reference for students and professional alike. Both the philosophy of chemistry and philosophies of scientific practice alike reflect the splitting of analytical and continental scholastic traditions, and some philosophers are turning for inspiration from the familiar resources of analytical philosophy to influences from the continental tradition and pragmatism. While philosophy of chemistry is practiced very much within the familiar analytical tradition, it is also capable of trail-blazing new philosophical approaches. In such a way, the seemingly disparate disciplines such as the “hard sciences” and philosophy become much more linked.

This book is an introduction to professional ethics in chemistry. After a brief overview of ethical theory, it provides a detailed discussion of professional ethic for chemists based on the view that the specific codes of conduct derive from a moral ideal. The moral ideal presented here has three parts. The first refers to the practice of science, the second to relationships within the scientific community and the third to the relationship between science and society, particularly the uses of science. The question of why a scientist should obey the professional code is discussed in terms of the virtue of reverence, after which the ethical issues unique to chemistry are identified. A method for approaching ethical problems is presented. Finally, there is a large collection of specific ethical problems, or cases, each followed by a commentary where the issues raised by that case are discussed.

Of Minds and Molecules is the first anthology devoted exclusively to work in the philosophy of chemistry. The essays, written by both chemists and philosophers, adopt distinctive philosophical perspectives on chemistry and collectively offer both a conceptualization of and a justification for this emerging field.

The application of statistical mechanics to the study of fluids over the past fifty years † or so has progressed through a series of problems of gradually increasing difficulty. The first and most elementary calculations were for the thermodynamic functions (heat capacities, entropies, free energies, etc.) of perfect gases. These properties are related to the molecular energy levels, which for perfect gases can be determined theoretically (by quantum calculations) or experimentally (by spectroscopic methods, for example). For simple molecules (CO2 , CH4 , etc.) the energy levels, and hence the thermodynamic properties, can be determined with great accuracy, and even for quite complex organic molecules it is now possible to obtain thermodynamic properties with satisfactory accuracy. With the advent of digital computers it became possible to calculate thermodynamic properties for a wide variety of substances and temperatures, and several useful tabulations of perfect gas properties now exist. Having successfully treated the perfect gas, it was natural to consider gases of moderate density, where intermolecular forces begin to have an effect, by expanding the thermodynamic functions in a power series (or virial series) in density. Although the mathematical basis for a theoretical treatment of this series was laid by Ursell in 1927, it was not exploited until ten years later, when Mayer re-examined the problem. Since that time a great deal of effort has been put into evaluating the virial coefficients that appear in the series for a variety of intermolecular force models. As the expressions for the virial coefficients are exact, they provide a very useful means of checking such force models by comparison of calculated and experimental coefficients. While the theory of dilute gases at equilibrium is essentially complete, this is far from being the case for all dense gases and liquids. The virial series cannot be applied directly to liquids. As an alternative to the ‘dense gas’ approach to liquids, there were early attempts to treat liquids as disordered solids by using cell or lattice theories; these were popular from the mid-1930s until the early 1960s.

This book provides a penetrating and comprehensive description of energy selected reactions from a theoretical as well as experimental view. Three major aspects of unimolecular reactions involving the preparation of the reactants in selected energy states, the rate of dissociation of the activated molecule, and the partitioning of the excess energy among the final products, are fully discussed with the aid of 175 illustrations and over 1,000 references, most from the recent literature. Examples of both neutral and ionic reactions are presented. Many of the difficult topics are discussed at several levels of sophistication to allow access by novices as well as experts. Among the topics covered for the first time in monograph form is a discussion of highly excited vibrational/rotational states and intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution. Problems associated with the application of RRKM theory are discussed with the aid of experimental examples. Detailed comparisons are also made between different statistical models of unimolecular decomposition. Both quantum and classical models not based on statistical assumptions are described. Finally, a chapter devoted to the theory of product energy distribution includes the application of phase space theory to the dissociation of small and large clusters. The work will be welcomed as a valuable resource by practicing researchers and graduate students in physical chemistry, and those involved in the study of chemical reaction dynamics.