computers in chemistry (biggs, pete)

Chemical Education Today

1028 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 78 No. 8 August 2001 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu

Book & Media Reviews

Computers in Chemistry

by Pete Biggs

Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 1999. 90 pp.Paperback: ISBN 0-19-850446-2. $12.95.

reviewed by Jack K. Steehler

This short, inexpensive book is #84 in the OxfordChemistry Primers series, which covers fundamental topicsat the undergraduate level. The goal of the text is to providean overview of computers and their use in chemistry.

One would think that a primer on computers in chem-istry would provide the reader with a solid introduction tomolecular modeling and associated calculation techniques andvisualization methods, both static and dynamic. I would alsoexpect discussion of data analysis and interpretation bycomputer. Very little of this information is included in this

text. Instead, there is a fuller treatment of the componentsof computers (CPU, memory), digital logic (logic chips,flip flops), interfacing (different types of analog-to-digitalconverters), and programming (Basic, Fortran, assemblylanguage). The entire section on computational chemistry isonly 11 pages and emphasizes the interface style of the soft-ware, with nothing about the computations themselves or thechemical basis or uses for the calculations. Later sections discussLaTeX, Word, and ISIS/Draw for presenting material, butnot in detail. Mention is made of the use of the Internet inchemistry, but this section is only one page long.

I doubt this book will be widely useful as an introductionto computers in chemistry. It might help undergraduateswho’d like a bit more information on computer hardware andinterfacing than is found in a standard instrumental analysistextbook, but it falls short as a more general reference.

Jack K. Steehler is in the Department of Chemistry, RoanokeCollege, Salem, VA 24153-3794; JSteehler@Roanoke.Edu.