Mathematics for chemistry

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Contents 1 Foreward 2 The chapters 3 Bibliography 4 Web Bibliography

[edit] Foreward

This book was initially derived from a set of notes used in a university chemistry course. It is hoped it will evolve into something useful and develop a set of open access problems as well as pedagogical material.

For many universities the days when admission to a Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science or even Physics course could require the equivalent of A-levels in Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics are probably over for ever. The broadening out of school curricula has had several effects, including student entry with a more diverse educational background and has also resulted in the subject areas Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics becoming disjoint so that there is no co-requisite material between them. This means that, for instance, physics cannot have any advanced, or even any very significant mathematics in it. This is to allow the subject to be studied without any of the maths which might be first studied by the A-level maths group at the ages of 17 and 18. Thus physics at school has become considerably more descriptive and visual than it was 20 years ago. The same applies to a lesser extent to chemistry.

This means there must be an essentially remedial component of university chemistry to teach just the Maths and Physics which is needed and not too much, if any more, as it is time consuming and perhaps not what the student of Chemistry is most focussed on. There is therefore also a need for a book Physics for chemistry.

[edit] The chapters

• The Basics
• Units and dimensions
• Trigonometry
• Differentiation
• Integration
• Complex Numbers
• Some Mathematical Examples applied to Chemistry
• Some Useful Aspects of Calculus
• Statistics
• Enzyme kinetics
• Vectors
• Matrices and Determinants
• Tests and Exams

[edit] Bibliography

• Bostock and Chandler,Core Maths for A-level, Third Edition, (Nelson Thornes,2000).
• M. C. R. Cockett and G. Doggett, Maths for Chemists, Vol 1 Functions and Calculus, Royal Society of Chemistry, London; M. C. R. Cockett and G. Doggett Maths for Chemists, Vol 2 Power series complex numbers and linear algebra, Royal Society of Chemistry, London (2003).
• G. Currell and T. Dowman,Mathematics and Statistics for Science, Wiley (2005) ISBN 13: 9780470022290.
• Stephen K. Scott, Beginning Maths for Chemistry, (Oxford,1995).
• Tebbutt P. 1994, Basic Mathematics for Chemistry, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.

[edit] Web Bibliography

There is much useful free material relevant to this book, including downloadable DVDs, funded by the HEFCE Fund for the Development of Teaching & Learning and the Gatsby Technical Education Project in association with the Higher Education Academy at [1].

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