Submitted by Nick K / University of Michigan-Flint on Tue, 07/05/2011 - 11:20
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Teaching

I ask for help from the VIPEr community again.  I have naively agreed to teach a special topics group theory course to two of our departments BS/MS degree students.  It is an independant study course that is supposed to cover group theory more indepth than what they would have recieved in their BS coursework.

I am looking for suggestions on what I should cover in this course(keeping in mind that it will be mostly independant study).  I have never taught a course on group theory and only have time to cover the basics in our undergraduate inorganic course.  How much depth should I give them being BS/MS students.  

I am also looking for suggestions on books other than Cotton's book.  I will be pulling some material from there but am looking for other options.  

I thank you all in advance for your help in putting together thoughts for this course.

 

Nick

Chip Nataro / Lafayette College
You might need to give more details on what you consider to be the 'basics'. One could imagine that being just point groups, or perhaps it is a little more. If you could give a little more info I would be happy to give some of my useless thoughts.
Tue, 07/05/2011 - 16:43 Permalink
Nick K / University of Michigan-Flint
Chip,Thanks for your help. In the inorganic course I offer we cover point groups, and up to diatomics for constructing MO diagrams. We do cover some polyatomic compounds but I do not expect them to derive group orbitals but we cover how the interact with atomic orbitals. For example why BF3 isn't as acidic as the inductive effect would make you believe. We only offer one semester of inorganic and its a fight to cover more than that and still give them some broad perspectives over a variety of inorganic topics. I hope that's enough information if not I can elaborate further. Nicholas KingsleyAssistant Professor of ChemistryUniversity of Michigan-Flint(810) 762-3077
Tue, 07/05/2011 - 19:33 Permalink
Nick K / University of Michigan-Flint
I forgot to mention we do cover character tables and what each thing on the table represents but we really don't go into much depth on how we derive each of the tables and how to apply the information that is given in them Nicholas Kingsley Assistant Professor of Chemistry University of Michigan-Flint (810) 762-3077
Tue, 07/05/2011 - 19:49 Permalink
Chip Nataro / Lafayette College
I certainly think it is worth going into derving the character tables. I think Miessler and Tarr do a pretty darn good job of that. You also didn't mention vibrational spectroscopy which would seem like another excellent topic to get into. I also think extending the construction of MO diagram coverage would be a logical step. You might also consider getting into Tunabe-Sugano diagrams a bit if that is something you don't cover in the regular course. I don't have too much beyond that.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 09:12 Permalink
Adam Johnson / Harvey Mudd College

I taught a special topics course on Advanced Group theory about 7 or 8 years ago.  I used Vincent "Moleculary symmetry and Group theory," 2nd ed, and Carter "Molecular symmetry and Group Theory" as texts, but mostly taught the course as student presentations rather than lecture.  I only had 4 students.  Vincent is more of a self study course,  and there were some aspects of Carter I really liked with others I didn't as much.  I also like both Kettle, and DeKock and Gray for their readable treatments.

 For me, course content focused on MO theory, deriving character tables, etc.  We did a bit of vibrational spectroscopy at the end.  We mostly just followed the presentation in Carter, but students brought in their own external sources/examples.

Wed, 07/06/2011 - 16:47 Permalink
Maggie Geselbracht / Reed College

Nick,

The first part of my Advanced Inorganic course (following a sophomore level Inorganic course that covers a lot of what you describe as "basic group theory") is taught directly from "Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory" by Carter.  I love, love, love this book.  And the students do, too!  I have had many students go off to grad school and comment that it is far more understandable to them than Cotton or any of the other advanced texts.  We definitely cover the chapters in Carter on the basic tools of group theory, then move on to vibrational spectroscopy, and then spend a lot of time on MO theory both main groups and TM complexes.  Some years I do electronic spectroscopy and Tanabe Sugano diagrams and some years I don't.

Although I have never taught it as an independent study, I think that Carter's book could easily be used for this purpose.

 

Thu, 07/07/2011 - 01:03 Permalink
Sheila Smith / University of Michigan- Dearborn

Harris and Bertolucci is out of print but still available (especially for two students).  Great applied text!

 

Thu, 07/07/2011 - 14:31 Permalink