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Chemistry: An Atoms First Approach 2nd Edition



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Author: Steven S. Zumdahl and Susan A. Zumdahl

Publisher: Cengage Learning

Genres:

Publish Date: January 2, 2015

ISBN-10: 1305079248

Pages: 1200

File Type: PDF

Language: English

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Book Preface

As you jump into the study of chemistry we hope that youwill find our text helpful and interesting. Our job is to present the concepts and ideas of chemistry in a way you can understand.

We hope to encourage you in your studies and to help you learn to solve problems in ways you can apply in all areas of your professional and personal lives.

Our main goal is to help you learn to become a truly creative problem solver. Our world badly needs people who can “think outside the box.” Our focus is to help you learn to think like a chemist. Why would you want to do that? Chemists are great problem solvers. They use logic, trial and error, and intuition—along with lots of patience—to work through complex problems. Chemists make mistakes, as we all do in our lives. The important thing that a chemist does is to learn from the mistakes and to try again. This “can do” attitude is useful in all careers.

In this book we develop the concepts in a natural way: The observations come first and then we develop models to explain the observed behavior. Models help us to understand and explain our world. They are central to scientific thinking. Models are very useful, but they also have limitations, which we will point out. By understanding the basic concepts in chemistry we lay the foundation for solving problems. Our main goal is to help you learn a thoughtful method of problem solving. True learning is more than memorizing facts. Truly educated people use their factual knowledge as a starting point—a basis for creative problem solving. Our strategy for solving problems is explained in Section 5.3. To solve a problem we ask ourselves questions, which help us think through the problem. We let the problem guide us to the solution. This process can be applied to all types of problems in all areas of life.

As you study the text, use the Examples and the problemsolving strategies to help you. The strategies are boxed to highlight them for you, and the Examples show how these strategies are applied.

After you have read and studied each chapter of the text you’ll need to practice your problem-solving skills. To do this we have provided plenty of review questions and end-of-chapter exercises. Your instructor may assign these on paper or online; in either case, you’ll want to work with your fellow students. One of the most effective ways to learn chemistry is through the exchange of ideas that comes from helping one another. The online homework assignments will give you instant feedback, and, in print, we have provided answers to some of the exercises in the back of the text. In all cases, your main goal is not just to get the correct answer, but to understand the process for getting the answer. Memorizing solutions for specific problems is not a very good way to prepare for an exam (or to solve problems in the real world!).

To become a great problem solver you’ll need these skills:

1. Look within the problem for the solution. (Let the problem guide you.)
2. Use the concepts you have learned along with a systematic, logical approach to find the solution.
3. Solve the problem by asking questions and learn to trust yourself to think it out.

You will make mistakes, but the important thing is to learn from these errors. The only way to gain confidence is to practice, practice, practice and to use your mistakes to find your weaknesses. Be patient with yourself and work hard to understand rather than simply memorize.

We hope you’ll have an interesting and successful year learning to think like a chemist!

Steve and Susan Zumdahl


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