Introduction

This book is intended as a semester course on the basic notions of Thermodynamics, Thermochemistry, and Quantum Mechanics for students majoring in Science (other than Chemistry and Physics) and Mathematics. It is appropriate as an introductory text for Chemistry and Physics majors as well.

The student must be comfortable with basic notions of Calculus,  including partial derivatives and integration. These will be reviewed only briefly, as part of the exposition. The knowledge of basic notions of probability, differential equations, and Linear Algebra is not required, but will make the going much easier.

Many thanks to Ms. Vy Quach for taking in-class notes for the the course CHEM4373, taught by me at the University of Houston, and typesetting them. These notes form the basis for the present book. The book is part of the University of Houston initiative on Open Educational Resources (OER). The creation of the book was enabled by an award from UH Alternative Textbook Incentive Program. This award and the assistance of Ms. Ariana Santiago are gratefully acknowledged.

Vassiliy Lubchenko is Professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Houston. He is a principal investigator with the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TcSUH). The work on this textbook was partially supported by the National Science Foundation, grant CHE-1956389, and The Welch Foundation, grant E-1765.