Best physical & theoretical chemistry books according to redditors
We found 171 Reddit comments discussing the best physical & theoretical chemistry books. We ranked the 75 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Here are all 4 books for less than $170 total
You are in college, be a smart consumer.
All of the books I can see from top to bottom on Amazon:
Books & Speakers | Price (New)
---|---
Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering (4th Edition) | $122.84
Molecular Thermodynamics | $80.17
Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach | $89.59
Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei, and Particles | $128.32
Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (The Mcgraw-Hill Chemical Engineering Series) | $226.58
Organic Chemistry 8th Edition | $186.00
Elementary Differential Equations | $217.67
Numerical Methods for Engineers, Sixth Edition | $200.67
Applied Partial Differential Equations | $20.46
Transport Phenomena, 2nd Edition | $85.00
Basic Engineering Data Collection and Analysis | $239.49
Calculus (9th Edition) | $146.36
Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes, 3rd Edition | $206.11
Inorganic Chemistry (4th Edition) | $100.00
Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer | $197.11
Biochemistry: A Short Course, 2nd Edition | $161.45
Separation Process Principles: Chemical and Biochemical Operations | $156.71
University Physics with Modern Physics (13th Edition) | $217.58
Speakers | $50.00
Most you can get is $1476.86 (selling all of the books (used and hard cover) in person), and if you sell it on Amazon, they take around 15% in fees, so you'll still get $1255.33. But wait...if you sell it to your university's book store, best they can do is $.01.
Total cost: $2832.11 (including speakers)
Net loss: -$1355.25 (books only). If sold on Amazon, net loss: -$1576.78 (books only). Speakers look nice; I wouldn't sell them.
Edit: Added the two books and the table. /u/The_King_of_Pants gave the price of speakers. ¡Muchas gracias para el oro! Reminder: Never buy your books at the bookstore.
Edit 2: Here are most of the books on Library Genesis
Thanks to /u/WhereToGoTomorrow
Last time this was posted someone pointed out that all these books could be purchased for significantly less than $1000.
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Chemical-Reaction-Engineering-4th/dp/0130473944
https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Chemistry-9th-Peter-Atkins/dp/1429218126
https://www.amazon.com/Separation-Process-Principles-Applications-Simulators/dp/0470481838
https://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Steven-S-Zumdahl/dp/061852844X
Chemistry has some expensive textbooks (each separate word is its own link)
Why fuck around?
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Chemistry-6th-Ira-Levine/dp/0136131069/
Yet C2 forms a quadruple bond according to Sason Shaik's calculations. And he knows all about hybridization since he literally wrote the book on modern Valence-Bond theory.
Don't know about skills you want, but there's quite a bit of free chemical software that it'd be good to be familiar with (Avogadro for building ligands/small molecules, Chimera for supramolecular and docking, etc.). Likewise, if you have access to WebMO, play around with it. The questions you develop while just trying different theories/basis sets with the same compound will lead you into a better understanding of what computational can (or can't) do. Molecular dynamics is a popular approach to protein (and thus biological) simulations. If you've never operated a computer from the command line before, there's a Codecademy course that has a good overview on that.
Google and Wikipedia can be your best friends. Most of my understanding came from seeing something discussed in a paper and researching what it was and why it was useful. This presentation gives a lot of background for theories and where they came from. This site has a nice introduction to semiempirical quantum calculations. I found this site when trying to understand what basis sets were, and it was very informative.
If you want a book, Essentials of Computational Chemistry is pretty widely used in computational courses.
Hope this helped a little bit!
Mathematical approaches to "typical organic chemistry problems" are certainly possible (via quantum calculations etc.), but the problem is that they very quickly become very complex, and you need to make approximations for all but the very simplest molecules. At which point you might as well use the arrow-pushing rules-of-thumb anyway.
A limited approach that uses math to predict the course of reactions can be found in Fleming's book https://www.amazon.ca/Frontier-Orbitals-Organic-Chemical-Reactions/dp/0471018198 but that too, is just an approximation. And you will probably need three or four semesters of organic chemistry under your belt before it'll make much sense.
There's a book titled "Chemical Applications of Group Theory"
https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Applications-Group-Theory-3rd/dp/0471510947
Cotton's "Chemical Applications to Group Theory" is pretty much the basis for all undergraduate classes that teach group theory. It's expensive though, and probably not the first book you'll want to read on the subject.
I would recommend Bertolucci's "Symmetry and Spectroscopy". It has a lot of great info, and is only $15.
Some good online sources (not all notes are about group theory, so pick and choose what will help you):
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-04-principles-of-inorganic-chemistry-ii-fall-2008/lecture-notes/
http://chemistry.caltech.edu/courses/ch112/syllabus.html
Under "Symmetry in Chemistry"
You should also have a working knowledge of matrix algebra. If you want to look into the subject deeper, a good understanding of linear algebra will help.
J.F. Cornwell, Group theory in physics: an introduction (link)
W. Ludwig, Symmetries in physics: group theory applied to physical problems(link)
M. Tinkham, Group theory and quantum mechanics (link)
W.-K. Tung, Group theory in physics (link)
E.P. Wigner, Group theory and its applications to the quantum mechanics of atomic spectra (link1, link2)
N. Jeevanjee, An Introduction to Tensors and Group Theory for Physicists (link)
G. Costa, Symmetries and Group Theory in Particle Physics: An Introduction to Space-Time and Internal Symmetries (link)
B. Hall, Lie Groups, Lie Algebras, and Representations: An Elementary Introduction (link)
R. McWeeny, Symmetry: An Introduction to Group Theory and Its Applications (Dover Books on Physics)(link)
I think more than just an issue with simplicity or difficulty this is a matter or feasibility. A grad student could easily get their dissertation doing this project for just one molecule. However if you're serious about this let me give you some advice.
Here are some books and resources that will catch you up McQuarrie, Cramer, Marcus Theory, and all things Mukamel for electron transfer.
Good luck!
[EDIT]: As far as temperature goes, that's a concern more so for the effects on a classical level, so you need a MD or semi-empirical system with a good forcefield defined.
If you are looking for a project for you and a programming friend to work on, the I suggest to you "Modern Quantum Chemistry" by Szabo and Ostlund. It isn't really modern any more, but it teaches you the fundamentals of setting up a Hartree-Fock calculation, which is a good "character building" exercise for a computational chemist. There is even a sample program in the back of the book (it is in Fortran). I'd recommend you and your friend port it over to C (or some other language that is familiar to one of you), as a project. The book can be had for ~$15 http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Quantum-Chemistry-Introduction-Electronic/dp/0486691861
Classes to consider should include:
Happy hunting!
To get into quantum chemistry(wavefunction based, non-DFT), I can recommend:
Modern Quantum Chemistry It is quite old (and is missing most of the modern methods and going in depth on some outdated methods) but explains the basics better than any other resource I have found.
And the Slides from Klopper et al. :
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
I believe you will find, that your program is not a good fit for most problems in quantum chemistry.
I can never pass up an opportunity to grind this particular ax - valence bond theory is actually a current area of research and is used in numerous applications. It is not merely a stepping stone to learning MO theory for the understanding of molecular structure and reactivity.
Atkins' Molecules and Why Chemical Reactions Happen? are great reads, The latter requires A2 knowledge at least, but it's an interesting read, it introduces a few first year topics but you should be fine anyway. Atkins' Molecules is a much easier read and written so well, there's some pretty interesting molecules you'll encounter in the book as well.
There's also this textbook called A-level Chemistry by E.N. Ramsden, this textbook is pretty old most school libraries have it (my secondary school and 6th form both had it). I used it during A2 as a reference book and it has some really good questions if you want a proper challenge, only problem is that it doesn't have all the answers to the questions so you will have to go to your teacher (this is good anyway, you'll get a better UCAS ref) for the answers.
It entirely depends on what you want to do. Everyone here so far is suggesting QM techniques, I use molecular dynamics for free energy simulations and algorithm development. If you are looking to use classical mechanics, i would suggest this and this.
Also a good understanding of Statistical Mechanics is a must, so check out this (google it). If you are looking for a free MD engine GROMACS and NAMD are free and would suggest on NAMD over GROMACS because the code seems to cut a lot of corners, but I use neither.
If this is more along the lines of what you are looking to do, feel free to pm me.
While it is a textbook, Ian Fleming's book (pirate it here ) might be what you're looking for. It doesn't really go into the 'cookbook' style cataloging of syntheses, which was what I hated the most about undergrad textbooks. Rather it tries to put a proper physics-based foundation to most of the o-chem you would have learned as an undergrad.
If you've a mathematical bent, Szabo and Ostlund gives a good overview of modern quantum chemistry. Less than $15, and much more readable than most quantum books out there (I'm looking at you, Atkins)
Along with Engel/Reid the course I took required Applied Mathematics for Physical Chemistry which you can find used for pretty cheap. It gives you a basic rundown of mathematical concepts with examples relating to phys chem. Of course, if your school does pchem in the same sequence as mine (2 semesters intro pchem, quantum, and then spectroscopy), you'll only need multivariable calculus (cal 3) for the first 2 semesters. Differential equations is needed (and should be taken before) quantum.
Chandler's Intro to Statistical Physics serves well as a first text in that subject. I found it easier to follow than other texts at that level.
UCSD provides an excellent, free ebook for their quantum courses.
Cotton's Chemical Applications of Group Theory is a decent resource.
In short, the symmetry of a state is the direct product of the irreducible representations of all of the orbitals occupied in that state. A full orbital only contributes the totally symmetric representation because the direct product of any irreducible representation with itself is the totally symmetric rep. Because of that fact, you only have to really take the direct product of the partially full orbitals to determine the symmetry of a state.
This web page also has some useful information about the octahedral group, including the product tables.
While not on alchemy itself, The 13th Element, a book about phosphorus, discusses the origins of its discovery in alchemy.
My p-chem professor recommended a book called Applied Mathematics to help with the math in the course. I haven't needed to use it just yet but I skimmed through it and it looks like a huge help. Maybe try that?
Edit: spelling
That's because you didn't link the current editions... here those are:
$135.45 https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Chemical-Reaction-Engineering-International/dp/0133887510
$201.77 https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Chemistry-Thermodynamics-Structure-Change/dp/1429290196
$121.53 https://www.amazon.com/Separation-Process-Principles-Applications-Simulators/dp/1119355230
$210.63 https://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Steven-S-Zumdahl/dp/1305957407
Sub-Total $669.38 + $53.55 Tax = $722.93 Grand Total
Nice.
I also highly recommend Christopher Cramer's book for applications.
We used a general P-chem textbook I'm afraid, and either focused only on questions that were biological in nature, or the professor used them as jumping off points for biologically-relevant examples.
https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Chemistry-9th-Peter-Atkins/dp/1429218126
(I personally used the "international" edition which was far cheaper)
Found all these books for less than 250, don't buy books at the bookstore
first, second, third, fourth
I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131008455/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It really saved me when I took physical chemistry after only having taken Calc 1.
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Quantum-Chemistry-Introduction-Electronic/dp/0486691861
I'm in chemistry, this is what I recommend to everybody doing q. chem. It explains things in a pretty understandable way imo. Also it's cheap
Frank Jensen's Introduction to Computational Chemistry is, in my opinion, one of the best books out there for computational chemistry. Jensen's book does a great job introducing the concepts and equations in a way that doesn't feel like you need years of background in math and physics to understand. This book lived on my desk while I was in grad school. From what I've seen, most university libraries have a copy of it in their collection.
There are books out there that go into far more detail about the various methods and give detailed mathematical proofs, like Ira Levine's Quantum Chemistry, but those are very dense and, even as someone with a PhD in the field, intimidating.
Ken Dill has the easiest to follow stat mech book I have encountered. McQuarrie has lots of good problems to work through. David Chandler is the shortest, and simultaneously most brilliant and difficult work on the subject I have read. His brief review of thermodynamics in the first couple chapters is fantastic if you only have a day or two to get back on the horse.
I learned GT from this book. Very focused on solid state physics.
This is also quite good.
The thermal energy and entropy components can be fairly large, however if you're looking at quantities that involve differencing the free energies I've found a lot of the times they cancel fairly well (for reactions in particular). Note this is anecdotal, you should still redo them but just bear in mind those results you're building on may not be so different to what you get from doing it properly. I remember finding this doc really useful. Gaussian whitepapers are usually pretty good in my experience.
Solvation is a whole other pain (can completely change a reaction free energy surface) and I would recommend that at any point that you can compare a computed free energy to an experimental value you do so. I just had to scrap a few calculations because I didn't bother to look up the correct solvation free energy for hydroxide.
Edit: I learned from This book which will almost definitely be in your university library.
Whatever software you are using will have documentation on how to run calculations and interpret the output. That will be the most practical source for what you are doing. For more info on the DFT method, any computation chemistry book will do. Cramer and Jensen are popular, but I've heard this monograph is great too.
That might indeed be the case. Is it this one?
I've thought about learning some of it off of wikipedia, but I feel like the first article I read with spring up about 30 more articles I need to read to understand the first. I purchased this book which has a chapter or two on quantum mechanics, dealing with the wave nature of matter.
Do you have any recommendations on a decent introductory book? My class is using Quantum Chemistry by McQuarrie if you're familiar.
This is a really great book. Not sure how "undergraduate" it is. But I'm not sure just how undergraduate chemical kinetics, as subject all to its own, is either. The mathematics is not the simplest.
But this book will cover any topic. It's very thorough.
I'd also recommend McQuarrie's PChem book. It has a very clear section on kinetics. And it's my favorite PChem book, but only just nudging out Atkins.
Why Chemical Reactions Happen by Keeler and Wothers is a very readable introduction to the theory underlying all of chemistry: Molecular Orbital Theory. I read it before starting my undergrad, and its what swayed me to chemistry over physics! All the fundamental theories of chemistry are rooted in quantum mechanics, using some really neat concepts! Well worth a read if you're familiar with high school chemistry!
For computational chemistry:
You will need to have a solid understanding of Quantum Chemistry. The two commonly used books for this is the following...
Quantum Chemistry: 6th ed. by Levine
Modern Quantum Chemistry by Szabo.
Honestly don't worry too much about the newest edition of Levine. I've been using the 5th edition and not much has changed. Szabo is published by Dover so its dirt cheap.
For actual computational chemistry, Cramer does a decent job.
None exist. But if you must, Cotton's book is obviously top notch.
Alternatively, one taught from a math perspective might be good.
https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Applications-Group-Theory-3rd/dp/0471510947
As a chemistry, I would love to receive this as a gift:
http://www.amazon.com/Structure-Introduction-Structural-Chemistry-Non-Resident/dp/0801403332/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302701767&sr=8-1
That is great that you love to read, one of the greatest gifts my tbm parents ever gave me. If you want something that will help give a better perspective on ST I would recommend The Problem with Physics by Lee Smolin. He worked in ST and has since moved onto other areas (he's also very nice if you ever get the chance to meet him), but this book is written such than a lay person can read and mostly understand what he talks about.
To get to ST at the level you can do something meaningful with it you'll need a solid calculus, partial differential equations, linear algebra, abstract algebra (mostly the ideas of groups, double groups, and certain Lie algebras), and topology background (you can usually find books on these topics that are geared toward physicists as not everything mathematicians care about is needed for the physics side). For the physics you should have, though it's not absolutely needed just useful for certain ideas, classical mechanics and electromagnetism. You'll need the basic QM, there's a good Intro to QM by David Griffiths, but you'll need calculus down to tackle this. You'll also need special and general relativity. Essentially a physics degree with a large emphasis in mathematics. Probably not what you wanted to hear.
If you're interested in this area, I would highly recommend not focusing on ST (others may say differently) but rather on QM in general. There are many facets of it at that are fascinating and a lot we still don't know. Not only that, but finding ever better ways to solve the fundamental equations is where a lot of work is also being done which is non-trivial and I find quite interesting as well.
Another area in this field (no pun intended) where more work needs to be done is scientific writing about these topics for a more general audience. This requires knowledge about the topics but also an ability to communicate them to those that may not have the same background (something scientists are not always that great at doing). I'm not sure if that would be of interest to you, though. I also have interests, myself, in the more recent history of QM and the various developments in the field, as this is not as well documented (I'm talking about the more obscure side paths that most people don't usually hear about even though they can have tremendous impacts later down the road).
In the context of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, pattern formation in complex systems and order at the edge of chaos, several introductory/intermediate books come to mind, in particular from the Brussels' school. For a start one could go with
Prigogine - The End of Certainty
Nicolis, Prigogine - Exploring Complexity
Kauffman - The Origins of Order
For something directly from one of the giant of chaos theory, maybe one could go with
Lorenz - The Essence of Chaos
Oooh! VX!
I read about this stuff a decade ago in a decadent little book called The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire and Phosphorous.
8/10, 11/10 with rice.
Well, it is a combination of organic chemistry (questions IV,V and VI) and inorganic chemistry (II). Question I is a basic chemistry question.
Question III is maybe inorganic, but could be thermodynamic as well. It depends on where you get the question. I have gotten similar questions in courses about thermodynamics and inorganic chemistry.
I'm not sure what basic books could be useful for you. For my bachelor I use the books organic chemistry and Physical chemistry. These books are quite advanced, I don't know if it helps you in anyway. But this is at least a start.
Sorry, couldn't find a book for inorganic chemistry. (don't know the writer and I can't get to my books unfortunately)
Good luck with learning chemistry!
I have a book called "Applied Mathematics in Physical Chemistry" by James R. Barrante. It is a comprehensive review and most of its examples are motivated by chemical problems. However, don't use it to teach yourself calculus -- use it to brush up on the calculus in context.
It also teaches matrices, vectors, etc. (Again, in context, but it should not be used for the first time you meet the topic.)
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/Group-Theory-Quantum-Mechanics-Chemistry/dp/0486432475
|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|
|China|amazon.cn|
This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.
Elements of Chemical Reaction Engineering, $135 new
Physical Chemistry, 9th edition (newer), $74 used (out of print)
Separation Process Principles, $121 new
I have a hard time believing that basic Chemistry book is $670
edit: someone beat me to it, the chemistry book is not $670, its $50
Started thinking about complexity before it went mainstream on exurb1a channel.
Couple things I wanted to point out about this topic:
Also this article: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=762
I believe some agencies actually do classify it as a chemical weapon. Source Of course, I suppose you could technically call anything a chemical weapon since they're all ultimately made of chemicals in some form.
White phosphorus is some nasty stuff too. I've read horror stories about its use in WWII, including incidents where soldiers who got it on them shot themselves instead of going through the pain. Pretty much nothing will stop it from burning and, even if you survive the burning, there's a decent chance it'll poison you. Source and very good read too. Actually, given that part, I can see how you could make that case that it's a chemical weapon.
Edited: Needed some punctuation.
The biochemistry book I used in college.
The physical chemistry (for life sciences) book I used in college.
McQuarrie's Stat. Mech. text would likely serve you well...
http://www.amazon.com/Group-Theory-Quantum-Mechanics-Chemistry/dp/0486432475
The Hartree-Fock method builds molecular orbitals for a given molecule out of atomic orbitals of a given basis set. Depending on how much calculus you know, this project may be difficult, as it is more appropriate for a 3rd year university student. If you're still interested though, these two books and ppt should help:
linus pauling
Attila Szabo
An Introduction to Quantum Chemistry
Another idea you guys could look into is researching the chemistry of semiconductors in computer chips, how semiconductors work, and possibly look into the future of quantum computing (if there is one).
Sorry to take so long to get back to you.
Highly recommend the Why Chemical Reactions Happen book.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0199249733/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_muitDbJVEXVQ4
Found this useful during my undergrad
> What happens if the crystal is not cubic? I assume the circular dichroism cancels in some way, but why?
Cubic crystals tend not to alleviate the degeneracy of the M_J quantum numbers (I'm just talking about atomic transitions here, not crystal states or molecular states). There are situations where imperfections cause symmetry breaking that leads to alleviation of degeneracy, but not in a perfect crystal. This only applies to insulators by the way. If you have a metallic crystal, free currents in the metal can cause circular dichroism.
> In what way do things get complicated, exactly?
You can have chiral molecules, but floating in solution their relative orientations are random. As a result circular dichroism is not measurable in the ensemble unless you can cause macroscopic alignment of the molecules (like in a chiral nematic liquid crystal).
Also, it's complicated because molecular wavefunctions are not as intuitive as atomic wavefunctions. It's tough to figure out whether a molecule will exhibit certain optical properties without doing molecular orbital calculations. Though, group theory can give you a reasonable intuition for many cases.
> Are there any handles I could use to understand things better?
This is a pretty complex topic that requires an understanding of quantum mechanics and group theory. I didn't fully understand all of this until the last year of my Ph.D. You should take some classes in condensed and soft matter, for starters.
There are some books I guess I could recommend:
As for what keywords to use in a literature seach. I couldn't tell you. There are quite a few situations that lead to circular dichroism which require different physics to understand. Without knowing exactly what domain you are working in and the details of what you are trying to do, I can only suggest you look for "circular dichroism" on google scholar.
I posted a comment a while ago describing, in detail, my workflow for understanding a topic. Maybe it will help you figure out what you are trying to figure out.
There’s a really good one published by Wiley called Essentials of Computational Chemistry. I work in a comp chem lab and this book is still extremely relevant and serves as a great reference imo. If you really really want to get into the theory of MD check out this set of lecture notes. http://fy.chalmers.se/~tfsgw/CompPhys/lectures/MD_LectureNotes_181111.pdf https://www.amazon.com/Essentials-Computational-Chemistry-Theories-Models/dp/0470091827
also Chandler and Hill which are pretty cheap
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Statistical-Mechanics-Chandler/dp/0195042778
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Statistical-Thermodynamics-Dover-Physics/dp/0486652424/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VYM9N447YW74GGJ4ZEBE
I've always found Atkins' Physical Chemistry to be fairly decent - and QM is one of his stronger areas.
The best primer for QM and chemistry is https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Chemistry-Donald-McQuarrie/dp/1891389505
If you are looking for resources to help you learn electronic structure theory, I recommend the textbook by Szabo and Ostlund here.
It's not a light read. it covers the core fundamentals of electrochemistry including mass transport, diffusion, and migration of charge at electrode interfaces, as well as, practical application of electrochemical techniques which include but aren't limited to polarography, cyclic volametry and other sweep/step techniques. The book focuses on the mathematical derivations of many important benchmark equations like cotrell and rendall-sevich which are used extensively. the proofs can be a bit challenging to follow without a decent background in calculus (diff. eq. helps too) but even if the derivations are lost, the important equations still hold true.
if you're looking for an introductory text for redox couples using electrochemistry you might be better off consulting a sophomoric text like Brown; Chemistry: The Central Science - Chapter 20 or Atkins' - Physical Chemistry - Chapter 7 & 25
don't hold me to those chapters... they could have changed from edition to edition.
Applied Mathematics for Physical Chemistry by James R. Barrante, has pretty much everything you're asking for.
link
I'm a theoretical chemist (experiments and me didn't get on, last thing I did in a lab was stab myself in the finger with an air blower), so you may want to treat what I say with a pinch of salt.
However, I found that there's potentially quite a lot of nice stuff in trying to understand mechanisms and suchlike, rather than just having to rote learn everything. Maybe try to get hold of some books on physical organic chemistry or on some more MO-based stuff (e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Frontier-Orbitals-Organic-Chemical-Reactions/dp/0471018198).
Hope that helps.
Nobel laureate in one field?? Did you miss the bit about the other Nobel prize?
Francis Crick called him the father of molecular biology: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-03-01/local/me-13101_1_crick
.
Textbooks written:
General Chemistry
The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals: An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry
.
Vitamin C vindication:
The trouble with most vitamin C studies is usually too small a dose. Also the oral vs intravenous thing. You know animals produce grams and grams per day, humans have a genetic deficit. This is my favourite article to explain: http://www.hearttechnology.com/1992-v07n01-p005.pdf
http://scienceblogs.com/gofindyourowndamnlinks/2009/02/18/vitamin-c-and-cancer-has-linus-pauling-b/
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/linus-pauling-vindicated-researchers-claim-rda-for-vitamin-c-is-flawed-71172707.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/aug/05/cancer.medicalresearch
http://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2008/4/newly-discovered-benefits-of-vitamin-c/Page-01
.
Heart disease is scurvy:
http://nutritionreview.org/2013/04/collagen-connection/
http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/pdf-files/heart_book.pdf
.
Also, here's an interesting read on nukes (remember that peace prize?) and free radicals (that other one was in chemistry): http://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2011/6/optimize-your-internal-defenses-against-radiation-exposure/Page-02
.
I hope this helps! My personal random-guy-on-the-internet recommendation is several hundred milligrams a few times a day, preferably away from food, increasing dosage during illness.