Physical Chemistry

Introduction

What is physical chemistry?

Physical chemistry is the application of the principles and methods of physics and math to chemistry. Physical chemistry can also be regarded as the study of the physical principles underlying chemistry. We want to know how and why materials behave as they do.

The ultimate goal of physical chemistry is to provide a (mathematical) model for all of chemistry.

 Level of mathematics required. Physical chemistry requires that calculus be used as a tool just as algebra has been used as a tool in previous courses.

The derivations and calculations of physical chemistry require lots of partial derivatives. (This is because the functions we deal with are functions of several variables.) We will also do lots of simple integrals. In the first semester the integrals are mostly in one variable. In the second semester there will be more integrals in two and three dimensions.

 At the University of Arizona the two semesters of physical chemistry are numbered Chemistry 480A and Chemistry 480B. The general outline of coverage for each semester is:

Chemistry 480A

Chemical Thermodynamics (thermodynamics applied to problems of chemical interest)

Kinetic molecular theory of gases

Chemical kinetics (rates of chemical reactions)

Chemistry 480B
Introduction to quantum mechanics (applied to problems of chemical interest)

Spectroscopy

Introduction to statistical thermodynamics


Thermodynamics is what we call a macroscopic theory. That is, it deals with the bulk properties of matter and does not concern itself with whether or not there are atoms or molecules. In fact, thermodynamics does not care whether or not there are atoms and molecules. On the other hand, quantum mechanics is a microscopic theory because it deals with the individual particles of matter. Statistical thermodynamics brings us full circle by providing a mechanism for calculating the properties of bulk material (macroscopic samples) from the properties of the atoms and molecules which comprise the material.

(Recently there has been a lot of interest in mesoscopic materials. These are materials which are composed of relatively small numbers of particles. They consist of so few particles that they do not manifest the same properties as the bulk matter, yet they have enough particles that they no longer have the properties of individual atoms or molecules. Work in this area has given rise to the so-called "nanoscale" technologies.)

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Copyright 2004, W. R. Salzman
Permission is granted for individual, noncommercial use of this file.
salzman@arizona.edu
Last updated 08 Jul 04