Introductory Chemistry, 6th Edition

Book Preface

I love the beach but hate sand. Sand gets everywhere and even comes home with you. Sand is annoying because sand particles are so small. They stick to your hands, to your feet, and to any food you might be trying to eat for lunch. But the smallness of sand particles pales in comparison to the smallness of the particles that compose them. Sand—like all other kinds of ordinary matter—is composed of atoms. Atoms are unimaginably small. A single sand grain contains more atoms than there are sand grains on the largest of beaches.
The idea that matter is composed of tiny particles is among the greatest discoveries of humankind. Nobel laureate Richard Feynman (1918–1988), in a lecture to first-year physics students at the California Institute of Technology, said that the most important idea in all human knowledge is that all things are made of atoms. Why is this idea so important? Because it establishes how we should go about understanding the properties of the things around us. If we want to understand how matter behaves, we must understand how the particles that compose that matter behave.

Atoms, and the molecules they compose, determine how matter behaves—if they were different, matter would be different. The nature of water molecules, for example, determines how water behaves. If water molecules were different—even in a small way—then water would be a different sort of substance. For example, we know that a water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom with a shape that looks like this:

How would water be different if the shape of the water molecule was different? What if the hydrogen atoms bonded to oxygen to form a linear molecule instead of a bent one?

The answer to this question is not altogether simple. We don’t know exactly how our hypothetical linear water would behave, but we do know it would be much different than ordinary water. For example, linear water would probably have a much lower boiling point than ordinary water. In fact, it may even be a gas (instead of a liquid) at room temperature. Imagine what our world would be like if water was a gas at room temperature. There would be no rivers, no lakes, no oceans, and probably no people (since liquid water is such an important part of what composes us).
There is a direct connection between the world of atoms and molecules and the world we experience every day (FIGURE 1.1). Chemists explore this connection. They seek to understand it. A good, simple definition of chemistry is the science that tries to understand how matter behaves by studying how atoms and molecules behave.

Brief Contents
1. Preface xix
1. 1 The Chemical World 2
2. 2 Measurement and Problem Solving 14
3. 3 Matter and Energy 60
4. 4 Atoms and Elements 98
5. 5 Molecules and Compounds 132
6. 6 Chemical Composition 168
7. 7 Chemical Reactions 206
8. 8 Quantities in Chemical Reactions 248
9. 9 Electrons in Atoms and the Periodic Table 284
10. 10 Chemical Bonding 324
11. 11 Gases 358
12. 12 Liquids, Solids, and Intermolecular Forces 408
13. 13 Solutions 444
14. 14 Acids and Bases 484
15. 15 Chemical Equilibrium 526
16. 16 Oxidation and Reduction 572
17. 17 Radioactivity and Nuclear Chemistry 608
18. 18 Organic Chemistry 640
19. 19 Biochemistry 694
1. Appendix: Mathematics Review MR-1
2. Answers to Odd-Numbered Exercises A-1
3. Glossary G-1
4. Credits C-1
5. Index I-1