Physical Chemistry I

CY351

Physical Chemistry I

Physical Chemistry is the sub-discipline of science that seeks to explain and interpret chemical phenomena. This is
accomplished by first assuming that chemical behavior is governed by a finite number of scientific laws. The job of the
physical chemist is to discover and understand these scientific laws. A knowledge of this ‘complete set of rules’ will
enable chemist to make predictions about chemical behavior in previously untested systems. Such predictive power can
greatly benefit humankind; for example, chemist will no longer be restricted to the mere discovery of novel cancer and
AIDS drugs or environmentally friendly industrial and consumer products, but can instead develop these substances
from first principles.

Physical chemists are often classified as working in one of two categories. The first group consists of the experimentalists,
who design laboratory experiments in an effort to probe the fundamental behavior of chemical systems. The second group
consists of theoretical or computational chemists, who develop theoretical models that explain or predict the data collected
by the experimentalist. Working together, the experimentalist and theoreticians have already made much progress in
understanding the chemical world. The first semester of physical chemistry, CY351, broadly covers the three primary
paradigms of this discipline; quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and kinetics. The second semester of physical chemistry
involves a more detailed treatment of the spectroscopic aspects of quantum mechanics (vibrational, rotational and nuclear
magnetic resonance) and also the topics of group theory and statistical mechanics.

Supporting Materials

Mathcad Downloads

1) Syllabus (Fall 2007)

2) Introduction to Mathcad (Tutorial)

3) Data-Driven Exercises for Physical Chemistry

1) Linear least squares template - best fit line
        (example x-y data to accompany above document)
2) Error Analysis
3) Comparison of Ideal and van der Waals (vdw) gases
4) Temperature dependence of reaction enthalpies
5) Heat capacity calculations
6) Carbon dioxide P-V curve: comparison of
      experimental data to ideal, vdw, and RK predictions
        (experimental P-V data for carbon dioxide at 315 K)

Useful Links and JAVA Applets.

1) National Institute of Standards and Technology - Chemistry Webpage (Thermodynamic data).
2)   Mathcad documents for physical chemistry (site maintained by Theresa Zielinski).
3)   WebElements (a web-based periodic table).
4)   Ideal Gas Simulator.
5)   SI Base Units - Standards.
6 ) Units Conversion - Online Megaconverter 2.

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