Chemical Education Today
edited by
Book & Media Reviews
Physical Chemistry CD 1
by Keith James Laidler, John H. Meiser, and
Bryan C. Sanctuary
MCH Multimedia Inc.: http://www.mchmultimedia.com,
2002. $79.99; $39.99 for students
Reviewed by Michael P. McCann
From some textbook publishers, I get a stack of supple-
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mentary material about a foot high. There are solutions to
even-numbered problems, odd-numbered problems,
instructor’s guide, instructor’s resource manual, student’s
guide, math review toolkit, media companion, transparency
pack, and finally the instructor’s annotated edition of the text-
Downloaded via 119.94.103.202 on August 3, 2019 at 08:09:00 (UTC).
book. I come from the old school, I suppose—all I want is
the same textbook that the students buy. Having no solu-
tions manual forces me to do the problems myself (though
it is nice to be able to check that I didn’t make any stupid
mistakes). So I must confess that I have never examined the
CDs that come with seemingly every textbook. With these
obvious prejudices, I have reviewed the CD by Laidler,
Meiser, and Sanctuary.
Since I did not have the textbook that I assume accom-
panies the CD, I cannot comment on how well the CD fol-
lows the text. To run the CD, you must install it on your
computer. I didn’t like that. If the school has not updated
my computer in a while, I am usually cramped for space on
the hard drive. In the computer labs on campus, students
are not allowed to install software. I installed the CD on a
266 MHz K6 computer with 64 MB of RAM and a 6 GB
hard drive running Windows 2000. The installation was
straightforward. (The README file on the CD indicates that
it also installs on Macintosh computer, which was verified
on an iMac with OS 9.1 and a Power Macintosh G3 with
OS 8.1.) The K6 computer was only capable of 800 × 600
pixel screen size on the monitor. The CD presentation was
made for video with a greater number of pixels because the
entire presentation could not be viewed on my monitor and
I was not able to pan to the regions off the screen.
I must say that I enjoyed the CD. Some sections would
ask you to do a calculation and type in the result. I think
that this is one of the strengths of computers, that they pro-
vide the student with immediate feedback. I instantly knew
that I forgot to divide by 2 when I calculated the kinetic en-
ergy. Another positive aspect of computers is that they don’t
mind going over the same concept over and over again. I usu-
ally get frustrated after explaining something for the third
time. I also enjoyed viewing the atomic orbitals. This is an-
other big plus for computers, that they can provide images
far superior to what I can draw on the board. The students
can manipulate the 3D images such as rotating the orbitals
for a different view. Other sections plot certain equations,
such as the radial functions, and provide immediate visual-
ization of an equation that may not make much sense to the
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • Journal of Chemical Education
Jeffrey Kovac
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
student. I actually found myself “playing” with a few things,
so the CD managed to hold my interest.
Before students can attack a problem, they need some
picture in their head of where they are going and what they
need to do. Dick Zare’s “Commentary” in this Journal 2 caused
me to rethink some of my prejudices about the value of com-
puter use and visualization. Chemistry is a field where visu-
alization is an important part of understanding; most people
are visual learners. So perhaps I have been unfair in ignoring
a lot of the supplementary material. Prior to reviewing this
CD, I already knew how to calculate kinetic energy and I
knew what atomic orbitals looked like. What is really im-
portant is the impact this CD has on a student. So I enlisted
the students in my first-semester physical chemistry class. This
can hardly be considered a statistical analysis, but I will
present just a few numbers and the general impressions of
the students.
There were 16 students in my class and 15 decided to
take up my extra credit assignment to provide their impres-
sions of the CD3. There were two biology majors, two fo-
rensic science majors, and the remaining students were
chemistry majors. There was a pretty wide range of abilities,
interest, and work ethic, so I believe this class provided a di-
verse population. I asked the students to review the first three
chapters dealing with classical thermodynamics (since that
was all we were covering that semester), but they were free
to review the rest of the CD if they wished. Most students
really liked the CD, some even commented that they wished
they had had the CD at the beginning of the semester. I
pointed out that their own physical chemistry textbook came
with a CD, but some of them remarked that it wasn’t very
good. One student commented that this CD was much bet-
ter than CDs with his general, organic, and analytical texts.
He even suggested that the CD might be used in place of
the text. Others enjoyed the CD so much they went on to
view the chapters on kinetics and quantum chemistry.
Some students felt that Chapter 1 was a simple review
of introductory physics and was not appropriate as students
should have had two semesters of physics prior to physical
chemistry. Others felt that the treatment of topics was a bit
spotty. I, too, felt that some topics were covered well and
others were completely ignored. As one student fairly pointed
out, this CD was intended as supplementary material. A num-
ber of students would have liked more questions, problems,
answers, and solutions. Students pointed out that they had
trouble figuring out which equation to use and how to put
the equation in a form appropriate for solving their prob-
lem. These students would like to have problem-solving
tutorials. A few students felt that most of the material was
too simple and would actually be more appropriate in first-
year general chemistry.
Most students liked the general “look and feel” and
found navigating pretty intuitive. Everyone said that it was
not at all obvious how to activate the sound and a number
of students (and I) weren’t even aware that there was a sound
component. A number of students said that they would have
489
 Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews
liked a “Play” button rather than an “Options” button for
animating the graphics. A lot of them said that they enjoyed
“rolling dice” and watching the histogram take on the shape
of a normal distribution.
This CD opened my eyes, and I would encourage my
students to use it. It would be nice if it ran off the CD rather
than a hard drive, although that might slow it down to the
point of being a bit jerky. Some mention should be made
about the requirements for running the CD. For example, it
should not be run on a computer with a screen resolution of
less than 1024 × 768. It is a bit spotty in the topics that it
treats, which is appropriate for supplementary material. In
light of the observation that some physical chemistry texts
are getting too complex, maybe this CD is moving in the
right direction4. I don’t believe that this CD would be useful
in the classroom because I think that the students would get
a lot more out of it playing with it on their own. The best
praise is the observation that most of the students and I found
490 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 5 May 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
ourselves running some of the animated graphics over and
over out of sheer enjoyment. How often can that be said in
physical chemistry?
Notes
1. An advance copy of Physical Chemistry CD was the version
reviewed.
2. Zare, Richard N. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 1290–1291.
3. The students who participated in the review were Scott
Aust, Cody Craig, Jonathan Downs, Lura Eakin, David Guzman,
Chastidy Hammond, Neeta Kongara, Paula McCall, Courtney Poe,
Sarah Sarabia, Toni Sellers, Jerry W. Swearingen Jr., Amanda Toman,
Michael Towler, and Angel Waddy.
4. Bernal, Pedro J. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 1075–1076.
Michael P. McCann is currently in the Materials Science
Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Ave-
nue, Argonne, IL 60439; mccannmp@yahoo.com.