The lecture notes presented in this volume were developed over a period of time that originated with the investigation of a research problem, the distortion from NiAs-type to MnP-type, the group-theoretical implications of which were investigated in collaboration with Professors F. Jellinek and C. Haas of the Laboratory for Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Groningen during the 1973-1974 year. This distortion provides the major example that is worked through in the notes. The subject matter of the notes has been incorporated in part in the lectures of a course in Solid State Chemistry...

The field of Physical Chemistry has developed through the application of theories and concepts developed by physicists to properties or processes of interest to chemists. Physicists, being principally concerned with the basic ideas, have generally restricted their attention to the simplest systems to which the concepts applied, and the task of applying the techniques and theories to the myriad substances and processes that comprise chemistry has been that of the physical chemists. The field of Solid State Chemistry has developed with a major impetus from the synthetic chemists who prepared...