Physical Chemistry

Instructor Information

Prof. Evans Adei

e-mail: eadei@yahoo.com

Office: Basement of Dean’s Office (Chemistry Complex)

Office Hours: Monday 12:30 am – 1:30 pm and by appointment

Teaching Assistant:

Reference Textbooks

Atkins, P. W. The Elements of Physical Chemistry (at least 2nd Edn.)

Atkins, P. W. Physical Chemistry(at least 5th Edn.)

Moore, W. J. Physical Chemistry(at least 4th Edn.)

Laidler, K. J. & Meiser J. H. Physical Chemistry (at least 2nd Edn.)

Adamson, A. W. Textbook of Physical Chemistry (at least 2nd Edn.)

Alberty R A & Silbey, R. J Physical Chemistry (at least 2nd Edn.)

Steinfeld J I., Francisco J. S. & Hase W. L. Chemical Kinetics & Dynamics (at least 1st Edn.)

Atkins, P. W Quanta: Handbook of Concepts (at least 1st Edn.)

Castellan G. W. Physical Chemistry 3rd Edn.

CHEM 155: BASIC PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY I

Paradigm Shift in our conception

Physical Chemistry and its Problems of Primary Concern

Structure of Science and its Classification

Theory Development: Concepts, Construct, Relationship, Proposition, Laws, Hypothesis and Models.

States of Matter I: Classification, Structure and Properties of Matter, System & State Variables and Equation of State

Thermodynamics I: First Law, Heat capacity, Enthalpy and thermochemistry.

Chemical Kinetics I: Elementary Chemical Kinetics, Basic Laws, Effects of Temperature and the Arrhenius equation.

Course Objectives

To provide the student with understanding of the principles, laws, and theories of physical chemistry and science.

Increase student ability to be constructively critical of scientific and cultural traditions around him/her by sizing up views and opinions and bringing the powers of his/her own reasoning to bear upon the situation in order to preserve what is valuable for the future.

Lead the mind of the student out into the open, to give it the best chance to be its best self

Awaken curiosity, humility and integrity in student and pursuit toward understanding his/her own place in the world and acting upon it.

Transmit Perceived wisdom and develop student skills to constructively and critically question and assess what we know and what we think we know.

Guide and direct, explain and clarify, but facility in solving problems in the classroom/exams and laboratory depends largely on the students familiarity of theory, recall of facts, ability to integrate knowledge and willingness to devote sufficient time and effort to the task.

What Do You See? Same old eyes, same old world but the difference is how

you look at what is in front of you, not what it is – Lister Sinclair

On the face of it, the easiest of all activities should be seeing what we see. In reality, it’s the hardest – Charles Movalli

It is the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive – C. W. Leadbeater

The question is not what you look at, but what you see – Thoreau

If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind

- M. Beck

What we see depends mainly on what we look for

- John Lubbock

Is there a “Sure Thing”?

What Do You See?

Our senses are amazing, but our brain's interpretation of the sense data is vulnerable.

Recognizing and acknowledging that we often do not see what is right in front of our eyes makes us more tolerant.

‘Seeing’ is taken from the word ‘see’ which dictionaries describe as to perceive something.

Perception is the process of recognition or relating what the eyes see with previous knowledge.

Perception and Attitude

We can always choose to perceive things differently.

You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can

focus on what's right.

Whether your dream is realistic or not is purely a

perception, and not based on external fact

Many of us think that our power is a tool or a weapon,

but, in fact, power is a state of being, the way you see.

Changing your mind is the most powerful step you can

take toward altering your world

Paradigm Shift in Conception of Nature

Paradigm:

Guiding intellectual framework/model of how the world works.

a set of tacit and explicit "rules of the game"

Set of ideas that defines what is and what is not shared experience to the scientists

A Road map that the scientist uses to make sense out of Nature.

Paradigm creators are rare and vast bulk of scientists makes it richer in particulars.

Traditional View of Scientific Change

old worldview + new data = new, improved worldview

process is linear

each improvement brings scientific understanding closer to The Truth

View of Scientific Change Introduced by Thomas Kuhn in

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

old worldview is replaced by new, different worldview

process is cyclical (revolutionary)

with each shift in paradigm, scientific understanding moves no closer to The

Truth, but rather away from Ignorance

The Structure of Scientific Revolution

Paradigm Shift in Conception of Nature

Aristotle 350 BC Everything was made up of earth, air, fire,

and water.

Although not based on fact it survived for over 2000 years,

1624 the Parliament of Paris passed a law compelling all

chemists of the Sorbonne to conform to the teaching Aristotle’s

idea, on pain of death and confiscation of goods.

Chemistry dates back from the time men no longer believed in

things just because they were customary or a famous man had

said so.

Coincided

American Revolution (1775 – 83) & French Revolution (1789 – 99)

Some Useful Thoughts

“The task is, not so much to see what no one has yet

seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought,

about that which everybody sees.” - E. Schrodinger

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they

can’t see the problem. - Gilbert Chesterton.

“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to

authority is not using his intelligence but his

memory”- Da Vinci

Some Useful Thoughts

“Everyone admires the bold; no one honours the timid” – Robert Greene

You cannot spend your life worrying about petty feelings of others.

When you choose the behaviour you choose your consequence.

The only real possession that ever matter is your uncompromising willingness to develop competence through repeated exposure study and practice which you had from birth.

New Scientific Conception of Nature

The shift from one paradigm to another is more than a religious conversion but an exercise of reason

God’s creation though nature might be it obeyed simple and universal laws that man can know and express in the precise language of mathematics.

Unlock natures secret through experimentation and quantitative study of physical quantities

Everything is made up of atoms etc.

Consequences of these beliefs, radio and atomic energy which could not possibly have been guessed at otherwise - realization of man’s finest powers of reason and constructive ability.

Power over Nature through Science

In the scientific world it is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish.

It is by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.

We are told that faith could remove mountains but no one believed it.

We are told that atomic bomb can remove mountains and everyone believes it because science insists on observation. Distinguish between facts and opinions.

Science has had two functions; to enable us to know things and to do things

Science does not settle where man will spend eternity

Dissent show Progress of Character

The world would never break new grounds if

children did not doubt, question, disrupt all

absolutes of their elders.

Science insists upon ascertaining matters of fact by

observation, not by consulting ancient authorities.

Most of us still believe many things that in fact have

no basis except in the assertions of the ancients.

Respect for observation – which science insists upon-

as opposed to tradition is difficult and contrary to

human nature.

Respect the Thinking above the Thought

The society of scientists is kept alive and grow only by a constant tension between dissent and respect, between independence from the views of others and tolerance for them.

Human search and research is a learning by steps of which none is final, and the mistakes of one generation are rungs in the ladder, no less than their correction by the next.

Science by its nature, respects the scientist more than his theories, the search above the discovery and the thinking above the thought.

The reverence for the authority of men who have been esteemed great retards men from advancing in science

Respect the Thinking above the Thought

‘The cure for ideas we oppose lies through open

discussion rather than through inhibition’

Free inquiry (without violating law) is indispensable to

good life. Universities exist for the sake of such inquiry

University education should not be intended to make

people comfortable, it is meant to make them think.

University should therefore guarantee members of its

community the broadest latitude to speak, write, listen,

challenge, and learn. University of Chicago’s Freedom of Expression tenet

Physical Chemistry

Establishes and develops the theoretical principles

Used to elucidate or clarify and interpret the

observations made in the investigation of the

composition, properties, and transformation of

matter

Clarification through a study of the physical

properties of the reacting substances and of the

effect of physical changes on the reactions

themselves.

Problems of Primary Concern to PChemists

Domains of

Thermodynamics question of the position of chemical equilibrium

Quantum mechanics and spectroscopy explore the structure and behaviour of individual atoms and

molecules

Chemical Kinetics and Chemical Dynamics

Statistical thermodynamics.

Overlap

Electrochemistry

SCIENCE AND ITS STRUCTURE

“The object of all science is to coordinate our experiences and to bring them into a logical system” - Albert Einstein

systematic (logical) framework for gaining and organizing knowledge that entails making observation, formulating laws, hypotheses, theories, and performing experiments

Common Feature of science:

Accept ‘reality’ or everyday experience, express it precisely through scrutiny and then explore the implication of what has been found.

Undefined Terms

A starting point is obtained by accepting certain terms as being undefined.

These terms are described but are not defined in the manner of other terms in the system.

Term ← Simpler term ← Simpler term ….

Postulate

admittedly unproven assumption adopted as basis of inferences or for the sake of argument - Not based upon any model for the structure of matter e.g. Definition of temperature. Assumed statement that applies to the particular area of study

Axiom

refers to assumed statements that are applicable to the entire field of study.

Chemistry

Chemistry is the sciences that deals with, or investigate the compositions, properties and transformations of substances, and various elementary forms of matter.

Chemistry began as experimental science. Substances were named and studied without reference to their molecular structure.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743 – 1794), father of modern chemistry established the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions

Joseph Proust (1754 - 1826) established the law of definite proportion in order to explain these laws, and

John Dalton (1766 – 1844) atomic theory in 1803 with which chemistry evolved into a molecular science, with properties of substances tied to their molecular structure.

Pervasive Nature Mathematics Science

Mathematics is a form of communication tool of

science, just as language is, and the “language”

of mathematics is a common feature, common to

all divisions of physical chemistry.

Precise Definition

The Possibility of Mathematical Deduction

Estimation of Probable Errors

Purpose

Subject

Matter

Pure /Basic Science(curiosity-driven research)

Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc.

Applied Science(Application of curiosity-driven resarch)

Engineering, Medicine, Pharmacy, Architecture, etc

Natural

Science

Physical

(Non-living matter)Physics, Chemsitry, Engineering, Meteorology

Biological(Living Matter) Medicine, Zoology, Forestry,

BehaviouralSciencee.g. Psychology

ScienceClassification

Economics,

Political Science

Social

Science

Sociology

*Mathematics:Communicationtool of Science

What is Research

Multiple, systematic strategies to generate

knowledge about human behaviour, human

experience, human environments in which the

thought and action process of the practitioner are

clearly specified so that they are logical,

understandable, conformable and useful.

Use of Theory Among Research Traditions

Abstraction depicts symbolic representation of

shared experience in theory development.

Abstraction built on consensus of what we obtain

through our senses is referred to as shared

experience.

All words are merely symbols used to describe

shared experience.

Levels of abstraction: concepts, constructs,

relationships and prepositions (principles).

Use of Theory Among Research Traditions

Concept

Symbolic representation of an observable

Helps us communicate our experiences and ideas to one another. Without them we would not have language.

Construct,

composed of a set of concepts that can be observed or submitted to measurement.

does not have an observable

Relationship

an association of two or more constructs or concepts.

Proposition or Principle

statement that governs a set of relationships and gives them a structure. Based on a model

MODEL

Construct of the human mind that provides a framework for discussion.

It represents a simplified version of the system it seeks to describe and incorporate only the most important features of the real entity it represents.

One must be careful to recognize the simplified features, the justification for introducing them and the limitations they impose.

Permits the prediction of new facts as well as the explanation of known observations

Scientific Investigation

Experiment: is a well-defined controlled procedure for obtaining information about a system under study.

Fact: is a valid observation or experience (reproducible piece of information) about some natural phenomenon.

Scientific Law (Rule)

Summary of experience about a natural phenomenon or repeating patterns that often emerge among the collected facts from experiment –

phenomenological relationship i.e., involve relationships between variables that are themselves experimentally defined. verbal statement or as a mathematical equation. Examples laws of Thermodynamics and QM

Theories or hypothesis draw on some postulated model or set of assumptions and may not be and in fact usually are not entirely correct. Phenomenological relationships (laws), however, merely reflect some aspect of the behaviour of nature, and must therefore be correct (within the limits of the experimental error of the measurements).

Hypothesis & Theory

Hypothesis

The whys in reproducible observations lead to hypothesis. It is essentially a

guess at an explanation in terms of more fundamental concepts – a

tentative explanation of observations. It is the first point in accounting for a

law.

Theory

hypothesis established as a result of the success of further experiments it

has inspired or by a more elaborate formulation (often in terms of

mathematics) that puts it into the context of broader aspect of science

an integrated body of concepts which successfully correlates the behaviour

of a material system with an imagined system or model whose behaviour is

considered to be understood

“...theory helps a researcher see the forest instead of just a single tree.”

Neuman

Scientific Investigation

The consequence of scientific investigation is an informed judgement.

Modern methods of investigation involve theories, instrumentation and computer programs that treat phenomena at a level of detail inaccessible to direct personal observation.

Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty; some most unsure, some nearly sure but none absolutely certain.

Richard Feyman

Scientific Theory

A scientific theory can never be proved but it can be disproved

The role of an experiment is therefore to subject scientific theory to a critical test.

Theories serve two important purposes:

They allow scientists to predict what will happen in experiments that have not yet been run.

They simplify the real problem of being able to remember all the scientific facts that have already been discovered.

Theories, imperfect as they may be are simply the best idea anyone has found so far to describe, explain and predict what happens in the world in which we live.

Collect Facts

about observ.

and expts.

Find Patterns,

Trends in

Facts and

Summarize as

Laws

Formulate/

Construct or

modify

hypothesis

through expts.

Perform

expt. To

test theory

Modify or

reject

theory

The naturalistic approach

TheoryHypothesis

Concept

Definition

Data

collection

Observations

Findings

Structure of Experimental-Type Inquiry

How Scientific Conclusion Arrived at

Communicated By

Intuition: A feeling that

something is wrong and

should be checked or for

just knowing that an idea

is right. Responsible for

new ideas

Emotions: An effective state

of consciousness in which

joy, sorrow, fear, hate or the

like is experienced.

Emotional appeal combines

with factual information and

argument to give effective

message.

Reasoning: based on the

rules of logic, process of

thinking or drawing

conclusion.

Reasoning: based on the

rules of logic, process of

thinking or drawing

conclusion.