This book is intended for the college student taking a first-year course in college chemistry. Its contents have been selected and organized so that “descriptive” inorganic chemistry is presented in a manner that emphasizes the application of physical and chemical principles to the properties of substances. Modem concepts of chemical bonding, atoms, molecules, gases, liquids, and changes of state are used to expand further the student’s comprehension of both principles and their applications. This greater depth may be explored with confidence since high school science courses have been and are constantly improving. Thus we assume that most students will have had an adequate course in high school chemistry. Nevertheless, Chapter 1 provides a brief review of the fundamentals usually covered in such a course.
In this book, descriptive chemistry is discussed in a horizontal fashion. The topics common to all elements are included under such headings as Monatomic Anions, Monatomic Cations, Oxyanions, Polymeric Anions, and Metals and Non- metals. Thus, for example, the oxyanions of metals are treated together with those derived from nonmetals. We stress the parallel behavior of metals instead of employing the familiar emphasis on the chemical family.
As a pedagogic device to increase flexibility and scope, additional materials expanding the discussion of selected topics are presented in the outside columns and are set off by a distinctive gray background. These supplementary materials do not affect the continuity of the text; rather, they make available more detailed and complex materials to the more sophisticated student looking for intellectual challenge (e.g., the derivation of the Schrodinger equation) and to the student who requires further assistance (e.g., a different approach to the mole concept). The subjects given such expanded treatments are selected on the basis of our teaching experience, where we have noted both those topics arousing the intellectually curious student and those that students have found difficult.