| Dear
Subscriber,
We are pleased to introduce a forthcoming title by Walter
Harrison of Stanford University - Theoretical Alchemy. For a
limited time, you can get your copy at a 25% discount
from our online bookstore. Quote WAUG25A as you pre-order. This
offer is valid from now till 10 Sep 2010. Do recommend this important
title to your library and colleagues.
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THEORETICAL ALCHEMY
Modeling Matter
by Walter Harrison (Stanford University, USA)
200pp (approx.)
978-981-4322-14-0(pbk): US$28 / £17 US$21
/ £12.75
978-981-4322-13-3: US$64 / £40 US$48 /
£30
About the Author
Walter A Harrison is a Professor Emeritus of
Applied Physics at Stanford University. He received a Bachelor of
Engineering Physics degree at Cornell University in 1953, and a PhD
degree in 1956 under Frederick Seitz at the University of Illinois.
After nine years as a physicist in the General Electric Research
Laboratory he moved to Stanford in 1965. He is the author of three
widely used texts and some 200 technical papers. He was a Guggenheim
Fellow and a Visiting Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, in
1970–71. He received a Senior Scientist von Humboldt Award for 1982,
and carried out research in the Max-Planck-Institut fur
Festkorperforschung in Stuttgart. Professor Harrison is a consultant to
Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is a fellow of the American Physical
Society.
The best way to understand chemical bonding may be to take a
view appropriate to each individual system, a view which may be quite
different for various systems. Sometimes two very different views are
appropriate for the same system, and then the combination may even give
the parameters needed to estimate the bonding energy by hand. Density
Functional Theory, on the other hand, generally tries to take one view
as applicable to all systems, and proceeds computationally.
In contrast to the author's two previous well-known
textbooks, Electronic Structure and the Properties of Solids
(1989) and Elementary
Electronic Structure (1999), in this book he tries to distill
the essence of the representation of electronic structure in a much
briefer description. It is shortened by focusing primarily on the
bonding energies, the energy gained in assembling atoms as a molecule
or a solid, or as a solid with a surface. A central point is that the
same description of the electronic structure which gives this cohesion,
can also be used to understand all of the other properties, though
those other properties are not emphasized here. The effort is
characterized by the title, which combines the modern word "theory"
with the ancient effort of "alchemy" to make sense of the material
world.
Contents:
- Atomic States
- Hydrides
- Simple Molecules
- Simple Metals
- Covalent Solids
- Ionic Crystals
- Transition and f-Shell Metals
- Transition-Metal Compounds
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