Physical Chemistry of Surfaces, 6th Edition

Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview or starting point
Review: How useful and valuable this book is largely depends on what you expect from it. This book provies an overview of the extremely broad field of surface chemistry. As a starting point to learning about that field, this book is excellent. There is validity to the criticisms offered by some other reviewers of this text. The derivations often don't give enough detail and there's not much help in the way of example problems, which can make it difficult for the student to use in a classroom setting. Do not expect extremely detailed and thorough treatments of any particular area of surface chemistry. Nearly any chapter in this book could (and does) have entire texts (and courses) devoted exclusively to that one subject. What you can expect from this book is an introduction to the key areas of surface chemistry. The book is loaded with references to point the interested reader in the right direction for more detailed and thorough treatments of the variety of different areas of surface chemistry. For this reason, I have found it to be a good starting point for learning more about several subjects. In short, this book is excellent if you want a broad overview of the field or need a place to start learning about a particular area of surface chemistry. It's not worth much if you are looking for extremely in depth, thorough treatments of specific areas of surface chemistry.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent overview or starting point
Review: How useful and valuable this book is largely depends on what you expect from it. This book provies an overview of the extremely broad field of surface chemistry. As a starting point to learning about that field, this book is excellent. There is validity to the criticisms offered by some other reviewers of this text. The derivations often don't give enough detail and there's not much help in the way of example problems, which can make it difficult for the student to use in a classroom setting. Do not expect extremely detailed and thorough treatments of any particular area of surface chemistry. Nearly any chapter in this book could (and does) have entire texts (and courses) devoted exclusively to that one subject. What you can expect from this book is an introduction to the key areas of surface chemistry. The book is loaded with references to point the interested reader in the right direction for more detailed and thorough treatments of the variety of different areas of surface chemistry. For this reason, I have found it to be a good starting point for learning more about several subjects. In short, this book is excellent if you want a broad overview of the field or need a place to start learning about a particular area of surface chemistry. It's not worth much if you are looking for extremely in depth, thorough treatments of specific areas of surface chemistry.

Rating:
Summary: The new edition is a lot worse than the earlier editions
Review: I have found the book very difficult to follow. The book reads more like a research paper than a textbook, in both style and content (for example, there are too many references, most of which are completely unnecesary). Many symbols are left undefined. There are many gaps in the derivations. Many concepts (e.g. the Maragoni effect) are introduced out of proper context. I would not recommend it to anybody. Get an earlier edition if you can.

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: I like this book, though I hate the subject. If you write to Adamson (get your advisor or whoever to do it) you can get an excellent hand-written solution manual to all the problems, and he's prompt too. Explanations are pretty good, and there's a long list of references in case you want to find original papers.

Rating:
Summary: Physical Chemistry of Surfaces
Review: I used this book as a text in my class 'Physical Chemistry of Liquids, Interfaces, and Colloids'. This book is not a textbook. My students are complaining all the time about the presentation of topics as well as the extent of derivations, interpretations, and lack of examples. I must admit that I have made a mistake for choosing this text for my course. If you are planing to use it as a text, please go through a few of the derivations and you will notice that the book offers very little to a student.

Rating:
Summary: To many references
Review: It was the text book of a discipline in my graduate couse. I and my friends had too many troubles with it, the text is dry with to many references. The text simply order you to look for some reference, instead of explain some obscure part of theory. We only understood many of the problems after Adamson sent the problems answer. The solve some problems we must looked for some references cited in the text, and that took a lot of time. During the couse we used to say that some problems are impossible to solve, others you don't give the correct answer, and the last ones you solve correctely, but you don't understand the why you solve by that way. We used the 5th edition until chapter 10, than we tried another book.

Rating:
Summary: Good in Some Respects, Disappointing in Others
Review: The latest edition of this wellknown book continues its past tradition in every respect. Although claimed to be a textbook, it is best as a source of references and a compendium of advances in physical chemistry of surfaces. Certain chapters (e.g., surface tension) are good enough for use in classroom, but others are very superficial and very disappointing. It is clear that neither the senior author nor the new one is an expert in most of the topics covered in the book. It appears that they have simply collected references from the literature (quite indiscriminately in many cases) and have attempted to summarize the results. It is still a good book to have, especially since no one else has bothered to write a fairly comprehensive book on the topic. For those interested in the 'dry' side of surface science, Somarjai's volume is superior to this one.