This book places oxygen on the center stage of chemistry in a manner that parallels the focus on carbon by 19th century chemists. One measure of the significance of oxygen chemistry is the greater diversity of oxygen-containing molecules than of carbon-containing molecules. One of the most important compounds is water, containing the properties of being a unique medium for biological chemistry and life, the source of all the dioxygen in the atmosphere, and the moderator of the earth's climate. Sawyer first introduces the biological origins of dioxygen and role of dioxygen in aerobic biology...

This book provides a penetrating and comprehensive description of energy selected reactions from a theoretical as well as experimental view. Three major aspects of unimolecular reactions involving the preparation of the reactants in selected energy states, the rate of dissociation of the activated molecule, and the partitioning of the excess energy among the final products, are fully discussed with the aid of 175 illustrations and over 1,000 references, most from the recent literature. Examples of both neutral and ionic reactions are presented. Many of the difficult topics are discussed at...

Theory of Molecular Fluids I: Fundamentals

This book describes the main methods of one- and two-dimensional high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in liquids within the quantum-mechanical formalism of the density matrix. In view of the increasing importance of NMR in chemistry and biochemistry, the work is particularly addressed to those scientists who do not have a working knowledge of quantum calculations. This knowledge is provided in the first part of the book through a description of quantum mechanics as applied to spin systems. This section is self-contained and limited to essentials. A final chapter is devoted...