Chemistry Books

This book is a must-read. Simple, concise, straightforward technically. You gotta read it, 'nuff said.

In this book you will learn to calculate the energy of an atomic bomb after already 5 pages using only one simple physical law (no, not Einstein!). When you are halfway in the book, you will understand the calculations of the critical mass.

However to fully appreciate the book, you need to have a basic understanding of mathematics and physics. (it would be nice if you know what a differential equation is.)

The book also contains several funny anekdotes which make it a truly astonishing reading.

Everybody should understand first and implement after and that's the purpose of this book: to deeply understand the standard in order to create or transform your management system (and by this way the quality system) into a customer driven management system

David Hoyle has over 30 years experience in quality Management and has authored or co-authored more than five books on ISO 9000. He is also the director of Transition Support, a firm that provides training and consulting in business improvement.

The book is easy to understand and is suitable for students, managers, instructors as well as auditors. The novice ISO practitioner as well as the seasoned ISO 9000 enthusiast will find this book a valuable tool when implementing ISO 9000 quality management systems. For those making the transition from the 1994 version of the standard, this book helps to point out the changes from the 1994 to the 2000 standard.

The standard has changed considerably. In the 4th edition, the meaning of each of the requirements of the ISO 9001:2000 standard is explained in detail and some of the sometimes confusing ISO language is clarified. The author explains why each of the requirements is necessary. He shows how each requirement links to the eight quality management principles on which the ISO 9001:2000 standard was based. The book gives practical guidance on implementing each requirement. This is the strong point of the book.

After introducing some basic quality concepts, the book explains the role, the origins and application of the ISO 9000 family. The succeeding chapters, 4 through 8, correspond to each of the five sections of the standard. This makes it easy when looking for help in understanding and implementing a certain requirement of the standard.

The 4th edition has a summary, a questionnaire that provides food for thought for the reader, and a list of references at the end of each chapter. A glossary and a list of related websites are included in the appendix.

The 4th edition of ISO 9000 Quality Systems Handbook will find a permanent place on your desk. Auditors will find this book indispensable.

The strategies outlined in this book will help the IT department become a partner with functional business units in delivering solutions that address burning business problems. The focus shifts to providinig measurable value to the business as opposed to implementing unified and elegant technologies.

The interesting information sprinkled throughout the book, including the boxes and figures, help keep the reader stimulated and yearning for greater knowledge of this exciting field. The color graphics also complement the book nicely. Although the subject covered in the book is extremely broad, the author managed to convey the perspectives of multiple scientific disciplines (e.g., biology, chemistry, computer science, math) very well. The combination of breadth and depth in a readable style is remarkable.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to readers interested in the area.

Dr. Schlick is an expert in this field and her group has published tons of molecular modeling research papers. Her expertise also makes this book valuable for computational scientific researchers. I highly recommend it.

This book's focus is generally on interactions with large molecules, DNA and proteins, although it does discuss small molecules (drugs, a few dozen to a few hundred atoms) too. That means that it skips most of the quantum mechanical modeling of more advanced computational chemistry texts.

Nothing is lost, because Schlick covers her chosen topic (molecular modeling and dynamics) in such detail. She starts with a very clear discussion of the structure of large biomolecules, with emphasis on the features that need quantitative description for modeling. That covers protein structure at ever level. It also covers DNA/RNA structure in the best detail I've ever seen. The double-helix is the just the starting point. There are alternative helix forms, non-standard binding between nucleotides, and asymmetries caused by nucleotide composition. The next chapters describe the geometric model and, briefly, the forces acting between atoms.

The second half of the book gets down to the nuts and bolts of modeling. This includes numerical techniques, minimization, sampling and Monte Carlo techniques, and the start of dynamics. Schlick attacks some of the nasty points of the calculations, such as modeling of forces that act on very different time scales. As with the simpler material, the development is clear, descriptive, and free of pointless theorems. The meticulous reader should come away able to implement most or all of the techniques described. The level of presentation is consistent and approachable. I think freshman physics should be enough preparation for most students to get most of the value out of the discussion.

The book is written with clarity as a top priority. The glossary is in the front, making sure that the reader knows it's a first-class part of the text. After that, every chapter starts with a list of the mathematical symbols and variables used and a one-line description of each. These are small things, but they increase the book's readability immensely. The illustrations are generally informative enough. On the whole, though, they don't seem quite up to the level of the textual and mathematical presentations.

I needed a crash course in the mathematical techniques used for describing molecular structure and behavior. I should have read this book first - its clarity and thoroughness would have saved me a lot of time. After this one, I can now go back and reread the more complex texts with more hops of understanding. Do yourself a favor and read this one first.

This upper-level undergraduate/lower-level graduate course was centered on mathematical and computational models of the three dimensional structure of DNA, and DNA topology. We found Professor T. Schlick's book very useful in our class preparation. In particular we covered chapter 5 (DNA structure) completely, sections 3 and 4 from chapter 7 (basic principles and formulation of atomic interactions in molecular mechanics), and several sections or subsections from chapters 8 and 9 (force terms used in molecular dynamics simulations). We also covered most of the material in chapter 10 (Multivariate Minimization), and gave a brief introduction to chapter 11 (Monte-Carlo techniques) and chapter 12 (Molecular Dynamics algorithms).

Chapter 5 starts with a very amenable and brief introduction that relates DNA with other biological processes and describes some of the challenges in studying DNA structure. It continues describing the basic building blocks of DNA. The author wisely spends some time defining the nomenclature for each of the atoms, angles and bonds that form these basic blocks. The following sections teach the reader what parameters are relevant for describing a DNA double helix and how they characterize the A, B and Z- forms of DNA. Illustrations in this chapter are particularly helpful.

Although our course's approach to DNA supercoiling was different that the one in the book I found particularly useful some illustrations in chapter 6 and movies (to be found in her webpage) that Prof. Schlick's group has developed over the years. In brief, chapter 6 is a study of more complex structures and behavior of DNA (such as structural role of the DNA sequence, DNA-protein interactions, and higher order organization of DNA -i.e. DNA supercoiling and histone-DNA interactions). This chapter can be a good source for short research projects (e.g. final projects).

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 describe the basic concepts in molecular mechanics. From sections 7.3 and 7.4 I found of interest how the author addresses the problem of the system size (i.e. number of interacting molecules) and some of the details that the author gives for modeling the geometry of atomic interactions. At the end of the chapter (section 7.4.3) interested readers can find some of the limitations of current approaches. Chapters 8 and 9 describe in depth the force fields and how to implement them. Chapter 9 also illustrates with clarity how to implement periodic boundary conditions and the advantages of using different lattice models.

Chapter 10 describes a number of familiar methods for energy minimization (i.e. steepest descent, conjugate gradient, etc....). We used sections 10.1 to 10.4 and section 10.5.2 (conjugate gradient). I found the Hessian patterns shown in figures 10.4 and 10.5 and the minimization trajectories shown in 10.10 very pedagogical. As in previous chapters the author finishes with practical recommendations and future challenges.

We left chapter 11 (Monte Carlo methods) for last in the course and discussed chapter 12 (molecular dynamics) first. As in previous chapters the author gives a very nice introduction (section 12.1 and 12.2) and covers the basics on simulation protocols in sections 12.3 and 12.4. Section 12.4 describes the basic integration algorithms such as leap-frog, verlet, etc... Figure 12.3 was revealing for the students as it compares the time scales in biological systems.

Chapter 11 (Monte-Carlo methods) provides a very comprehensive introduction to Monte-Carlo methods. We found particularly useful some of the subsections of random number generation and the treatment of Importance sampling and Markov chains in section 11.5.

As mentioned earlier we were particularly delighted with the amount of details given in each topic. For example chapters 7 and 8 provide all the formalism needed for the problems of molecular mechanics. In section 8.4 (bond angle potential) the author highlights the differences (both formally and by figures-see figure 8.4) between different formulations of the problem (see also figure 8.6). In Chapter 10 the author describes minimization algorithms in detail and shows some of the patterns that one observes in the Hessian associated to minimization functions of biological structures (see figs. 10.4, 10.5 and 10.11). She also makes very detailed comparisons between the different minimization methods (see figs 10. 2, 10.10). In chapter 12 she compares the different methods and initial conditions for the algorithms discussed (figs 12.3, 12.4, 12.6).

Overall we found that Prof. T. Schlick's book is very adequate for a broad spectrum of levels and very accessible to both graduate and undergraduate students interested in mathematical modeling and computational biology. It is also very well organized facilitating the option of selecting parts of the material for the classroom or for use in one's research.

Finally we may play with the "building blocks of matter" we've been hearing so much about. Here is an instruction manual, detailing the Elements, and their Interactions, while at the same time suggesting possible Design Models for construcion.

Curious about the subject?
Start with Drexler's Engines of Creation, instead. Maybe some other collections of theoretical applications to whet your appetite. Come back to this when you begin to see a bigger picture.

Know some, want to know more?
Definately read. But be warned, it is quite techincal when it is not being necessarily vague. This is a halmark. The basis of this book was Drexler's thesis for his doctorate in Molecular Nanotechnology, the first awarded (MIT 1991, I believe).

Serious about the topic?
You already have access to a copy...or should.

You might very well be able to download significant portions from Foresight's website (it's an org.anization, not a com.mercial); but I would suggest supporting them with at least the price of the book. They seem to be committed to developing this Potential responsibly.

Your book is an excellent guide. Thank you for inviting me to the field of nanotechnology.

Sincerely,

Kenneth L. Buckingham, Founder Tiny Technology, Inc.