Hi All-
My first post- how exciting! Was wondering if anyone else feels the way I do about S&A 5th (or 4th, for that matter). I just got through the first three chapters after switching from M&T. I am struggling to decide whether I regret this or not.
1. MO Diagrams in S&A- way harder than they need to be and taught PRE-symmetry. Ugh- extra lines on the diagrams to (presumably) show secondary mixing confuses everyone (including me). Use of the word SALC in the answer key, yet not in the text, another 'Ugh!' Ignores energy levels of orbitals. Very frustrating. Also, diagrams (such as Fig 2.20) look to be 'to scale' in terms of drawing orbitals larger to show which parent contributes more. If that is the case, isn't fig 2.20 backwards?
2. Ionic radii given in appendix. These seem to be at odds with just about every other resource. Further, if one uses the values given to do the radius ratio exercises (e.g. 3.13), there is NO WAY one can get the answers listed in the solutions manual.
Any thoughts/comments?
Thanks
Chris
Am I that one person, Adam? It's growing on me. My students seem to like it alot. I have used S&A for about 4 years and really liked it (and in the interest of full disclosure, I consulted on the last version). I did not have an issue with the MO pics, but I agree now that M&T does a better job with those. However, it probably helps that I feel no compulsion to follow the order of the textbook.
Sheila Smith
Associate Professor of Chemistry
University of Michigan- Dearborn
313-583-6399(office)
I had a Goldilocks-like experience with my first three years of teaching our senior-level inorganic course.
The first year, the content I included was too easy (more like a sophomore level inorganic course), and the textbook I used (M&T) was more rigorous than my content. The second year, I made the content much more challenging, I switched to S&A (because I'd liked it as a resource in the first year), and I became extremely frustrated with S&A's lack of depth in some topics. Group theory, I believe, was a major one.
Then the third year was just right. Content remained challenging and I moved back to M&T. Am very satisfied now!