jackjohnson5 (Stranger)
05-19-02 05:15
No 310575
      textbooks     

I'm learning more and more about organic chemistry, but after trying to read some of the more advanced posts in here and getting quite  down on myself , i know i  really need to learn from a textbook,id really appreciate if some of the bees posted their opinions on the best textbooks to get. I need of course the most basic first year textbook, but i'd also like to hear everyone's thoughts on more advanced textbooks to take me through the whole undergraduate course. If there are textbooks that do this all in one volume, that would be great too.  I hope i dont get flamed for this post, be nice please:)
 
 
 
 
    VinnyC
(One Man Show)
05-19-02 06:35
No 310604
      Vogel     

Vogel's 3rd edition text is out of print, but a good choice if you can find it. His latest text Practical Organic Chemistry (5th Edition) is available. I am waiting on that one myself...

"Have we descended to the level of dumb beasts?" Fear & Loathing
Be loved and blessed hp and cg!!
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 13:41
No 310755
      OOh, good choice VC!     

I had already bought my two latest books when HoH showed me the 5th was out and available. I nearly kicked myself when I realized I now have to wait until I finish reading these two to buy Vogel (as is my custom to prevent my overbuying of books. Im like a fish, if given the opportunity to eat until it dies, it will. Such is my action with bookbuying.)

Its NEXT on the to get list.

                                                  PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    os2sailor
(Stranger)
05-19-02 15:35
No 310783
      Additional Books     

There is another good organic chemistry book,"Organic Chemisty" by Francis Carey. It is a second year undergraduate chemisty book. I believe it is upto the 4th edition. Mine is the second edition for my school days. There is no one book that will covr all the areas of an undergrduate chemist. Check out the used text books at your local community college or used text book store. You can find them for pennies on the dollar. Bee well and hit them books...HeHeHe.
 
 
 
 
    terbium
(Old P2P Cook)
05-19-02 18:01
No 310823
      Vogels availability?     

I had already bought my two latest books when HoH showed me the 5th was out and available.
Details please, publisher, ISBN, online bookstore URL etc.
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 18:06
No 310825
      I know it, it caught me offguard too.     

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0582462363/qid=1021824312/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/002-1632388-5992011

ISBN: 0582462363

5th Ed. neato. smile

                                                 PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    hypo
(Hive Addict)
05-19-02 18:28
No 310829
      a good introductory book.     

vollhardt/schore is a good introduction to oc.
very clear illustrations and funny anecdotes.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716734605

but be sure to also get an introduction to inorganic chemistry.
understanding the structure of atoms is fundamental!
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 18:37
No 310833
      I want     

I want that molecular model plastic builder set thingy. Its kind of pricey at 45$ but I think I might buy it for fun heh. I always loved legos, but when I had mine, I didnt know what chemistry was haha.

hm.......

                                                 PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    hypo
(Hive Addict)
05-19-02 18:41
No 310834
      heh...     

together with "a fine balance" laugh

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0205081363
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 18:44
No 310835
      Another Good One     

This looks good too.

"The art of writing reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387985409/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/002-1632388-5992011

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    Rhodium
(Chief Bee)
05-19-02 20:26
No 310862
      Book reviews     

PP: That book is pretty good, but I haven't read it from beginning to end yet. A really good thing about it is the frequent reminders throughout the book "Common error alert!" where they explain the correct way of drawing/thinking, where intuition tells you otherwise. The book is suited for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

I really should make a page at my site with book reccommendations and a short review of each. I guess that would help many people. PP: You have a lot of books, could you review the best ones with about 200 words, and I'll include them too.
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 20:36
No 310869
      Of Course     

Which book were you referring to? The drawing reaction mechs one?

My problem is that these books are so expensive and so thick, I want to buy them all at once, but I cant afford it, nor can I possibly absorb all the info contained within in the first reading, and it takes too long to read a book.

Sigh.....my to get list now has approximately 43 books on it. Thats several thousand dollars worth of books at these prices of $70/bk average. No wonder I can't afford lab equipment! laugh

I will review some of my favorite books, but they arent great textbooks like these.

                                                 PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    Rhodium
(Chief Bee)
05-19-02 21:47
No 310893
      I/O error     

Yes, the rxn mechanism book. I have the same problem as you, I buy way more books than I have the time to read thoroughly. In the same fashion I have downloaded 1250 journal articles in PDF format (750MB) the last six months (because the abstracts indicated that they were applicable to our field), and I haven't read 10% of them - I still continue to download articles all the time, but cannot find the time to read them, or make any use of them.

Where is the time? The information influx from the net is always more than ten times the amount I can absorb, I never get the time to rewrite what i find into interesting posts, I can barely catalog all my downloads into suitable subdirectories on my HD. If it continues like this I'll have over a terabyte of acutely interesting information in 2005, but with only a few gigabytes of it read, and a few megabytes of it condensed and published on my site. I need an army of secretaries immediately, or else my existance will be reduced into only being an information collector with no output, and what use do you have of me then? It is only the output that counts, it is the only thing that can be of value to others.
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 22:36
No 310914
      Lotto     

We need to win a super lotto and get a few million dollars starting capital. laugh

Then we (especially me) can quit any jobs we have and read read read 24/7 while on stimulants (lol) and do nothing but process data until its done. What a lovely existence, we can synthesize all the neural enhancers known and IV them into our bodies to aid comprehension. perhaps we should actually study genetics and bioinformatics before chemistry, so we can learn how to alter our genes to increase comprehension 100 fold, THEN proceed to the ominous task of processing and profiling the input data for the nicely catalogued output deisred on your website.

yes, that is EXACTLY what we need! laugh

Or we could just get ourselves cloned, maybe that would be easier? tongue

I hate not understanding something I read. Its like FUCK ME what does that mean? Someone wrote it, so he understood it, why cant I? Damnit, now I have to read more just to understand that, then when you read something else, it becomes a never ending cycle of not getting something and/or finding OTHER interesting shit that needs exploring. I get overwhelmed a lot. I bet you do too.

                                                  PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    jackjohnson5
(Stranger)
05-19-02 22:47
No 310920
      exactly!     

Thats how i feel, there's way too much info to comprehend, especially starting out. Also, anyone familiar with mcmurrys book, "organic chemistry"? I've read that is one of the best out there, how does it compare with vollhardts book?
 
 
 
 
    Rhodium
(Chief Bee)
05-19-02 23:01
No 310926
      Mad Scientists     

It's like reading journal articles. Each interesting article references 10+ more, and the larger an article is, the more interesting stuff is lingering in it, and the more references it has. The potential information sources always increases exponentially. I hate having to discard things to read in favor of other things, I want it all. Otherwise I'll invariably lose the ability of discovering what's in the 90% I had to discard. It feels like such a waste.

Don't you just LOVE the "history lesson" scene in Lawnmower Man? To be able to increase the studying speed like he does? Unfortunately the movie illustrates a sad truth about reality - genius invariably leads to insanity. Just read "Strange Brains and Genius" by C. A. Pickover, it is a review of the most genial scientists from the last 250 years, and what mental illnesses always followed in the footsteps of their intelligence and/or productivity. To be able to gather as much information as necessary to be really successful, you need to be somewhat obsessive-compulsive. To have the time to pursue your work, you need to be asocial, or else the time spent with other people will be taken from your research. Being intelligent you invariably will realize many sad truths of reality and become depressed over them, and develop phobias and paranoia to a higher degree than the rest of the population, because you see many things they don't see.

The question is - how much of one's sanity is one willing to sacrifice to aquire the abilities of a genius?
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-19-02 23:25
No 310935
      What are you here for?     

Ask yourself this: Why am I here? Am I here to just get shit done? Do I want to learn how to "cook" drugs from recipes? If so, everything that is needed is hypothetically located here and at Rhodium's site.

No books needed.

Are you here because you want to understand what is going on with those tiny little atomic fuckers? Again, nearly everything is already laid out here, but you lack the introduction, the things not detailed here, are the things we take for granted: a fundamental understanding of chemistry. To get this understanding, take a course, and/or buy some basic books, like the ones mentioned in this thread. They will seriously help you out.

As proof that everything you need is at your fingertips and in the pages of a few books, I can say that I have never once taken any chemistry course, high school, college, nada.

Everything ive learned has been from: The Hive, Rhodium's website, internet tutorials, a Chemistry Dictionary (read cover to cover) and about 4 different chemistry books, one was a high school incredibly basic understanding of "this is an atom, it consists of" etc., and the other three are just normal chem books written by really smart people lol.

You would be so amazed at just how much you will learn after you have your basic understanding, by just opening the main index of Rhod's site, and reading the documents one after another, just go down the list. When you reach the bottom, start using the search engine. Make sure you cache is set to at least 2MB, so that the links youve visited are dim, so you know if youve already read it or not.

Do the same here with the older pages of the forums: chemistry, methods, novel, and serious.

I learned a lot of good chemistry by viewing old Novel and Serious threads back in the hive '98-'00 days.

Just read, its here. Sooo much is here.

                                                 PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    PrimoPyro
(Hive Prodigy)
05-21-02 01:43
No 311522
      Woo-Motherfuckin'-Hoo!     

smile

My two newest books just arrived earlier today, I love getting new books! cool

Functional Group Chemistry, James R. Hanson, ISBN: 0-471-22480-4

Organometallics: A Concise Introduction, 2nd ed., Ch. Elschenbroich, A. Salzer, ISBN: 0-89573-983-6


From the looks of it, they both contain fuckloads of great info that Im going to love absorbing. smile (God Im such a fucking nerd sometimes. crazy)

I think Vogel's and that drawing rxn mechs two will be next, after I read these two. cool

I'll letcha all know how they read in two weeks or so after they have biten the dust. smile Expect a lot of new posts in the Chem forum dealing with all the nifty shit I read in these, but you knew that already; it goes without saying. wink

                                                   PrimoPyro

Vivent Longtemps La Ruche! How's my posting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT
 
 
 
 
    wyndowlicker
(Hive Bee)
05-21-02 06:44
No 311693
      hey now!     

hey kids!how about the organic chem lab survival manual by:James Zubrick forth addition.this is organic chemistry for dummies.With the little tid bits here and there you get what you need.Everytime swiw reads this book he understands a little more than before.Vogels 5th is on his christmas list!And Rhodium how can one not either become reclusive or  start living a double life.You even have to slip back into the matrix from time to time to hold on to this plane af existance.tongueThis life isnt easy especially when youve been inlightened.

I will choke untill I swallow!Who are you to judge or strike me down!Miss you Kerra!
 
 
 
 
    Rhodium
(Chief Bee)
10-14-04 01:57
No 535723
      Reductions by the Alumino- and Borohydrides     

Reductions by the Alumino- and Borohydrides in Organic Synthesis, 2nd Edition
Jacqueline Seyden-Penne
ISBN: 0-471-19036-5, 224 pages (1997)
Published by John Wiley & Sons (http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471190365.html)

   
Table of Contents
  • Description and Characteristics of the Main Reagents
  • Cleavage of the Carbon-Heteroatom Single Bond
  • Reduction of Double Bonds
  • Reduction of Triple Bonds
  • Other Derivatives
  • Synoptic Tables
  • References
  • Index
A complete guide to selection and use of the best reagents for a wide range of transformations

This book is the updated and expanded Second Edition of Jacqueline Seyden-Penne's practical guide to selection of reducing reagents in organic synthesis. It is an indispensable working resource for organic synthetic chemists—the only reference focusing exclusively on aluminohydrides and borohydrides and their derivatives.

Simple to use, it is organized according to specific reductions so that chemists can more easily match the best reagent to a given transformation. Throughout, Dr. Seyden-Penne emphasizes four crucial categories: compatibility, possibilities for partial reduction, the regio- and stereoselectivity of reductions that are altered or controlled by neighboring groups, and asymmetric reductions.

Extremely well-referenced, Reductions by the Alumino- and Borohydrides in Organic Synthesis provides the most up-to-date, detailed coverage of:
  • Successful techniques for performing highly selective reductions
  • Chemo-, regio-, stereo-, and enantioselective reductions of both simple and complex compounds
  • Best methods for obtaining the main functional groups by hydridereduction, provided in quick-reference tabular form
  • New and more selective reagents developed within the last five years
  • Experimental conditions, including solvent and temperature, and yields for most cases described.


Review: Reductions by the Alumino- and Borohydrides in Organic Synthesis, 2nd edition (by Jacqueline Seyden-Penne)
Hoye, R. C. J. Chem. Educ. 76, 33 (1999)

This book focuses entirely on the aluminohydride and borohydride reducing agents. It condenses a large body of information into a valuable user-friendly resource for synthetic organic chemists. The author states that "This second edition has been broadly updated, but it is no longer exhaustive. As in the previous edition, the examples are selected in order to cover problems that are frequently encountered in synthesis."

The first chapter (13 pages) gives an excellent summary of the approximately two dozen most widely used aluminohydride and borohydride reagents. Information is presented on the main applications of each reagent and its solubility characteristics, stability, and handling requirements. Cross-references are liberally given to subsequent chapters where more complete reactivity profiles and examples are found. Chapters two through five (155 pages) detail reduction of the main functional groups by these reagents.

Chapter two covers reductions of carbon-heteroatom single bonds (C-Hal, C-O, C-N, C-P). Reagents capable of effecting a desired single-bond cleavage are described, as are mechanistic considerations of the process. Chemoselectivity and regioselectivity are duly noted.

Chapter three is concerned with reduction of double bonds (C=C, C=O, C=N) and is by far the largest chapter in the book. Reduction of carbon-oxygen double bonds is organized by functional group. The examples for aldehydes and ketones illustrate the potential for selectivity in the presence of other functional groups; the control of stereoselectivity, including a discussion of the factors favoring the Felkin-Ahn or Houk models; a survey of enantioselective reducing agents, particularly those developed in recent years; and the influence of neighboring substituents on stereoselectivity as the result of chelation control. These concerns and further consideration of conditions for partial reduction are given for carboxylic acid derivatives. Similar examples are included for reduction of carbon-nitrogen double bonds.

Carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen triple bonds, both isolated and conjugated, are treated in Chapter four. The examples illustrate the potential for chemo-, regio-, and stereoselectivity. Chapter five addresses the reduction of "other derivatives", including nitro and nitroso derivatives, azides, organometallics, sulfides (sulfoxides, sulfones, and amine oxides), phosphine oxides and phosphates, silyl derivatives, and boron reagents. Seyden-Penne concludes with a large table (11 pages) that "shows at a glance" the various methods by which major functional groups can be obtained by hydride reduction with cross references to the appropriate sections of the text.

This book is a thorough and dense compilation of experimental results and observations that highlight selectivity at every level as well as experimental practicality. The 10-page index appears to be well organized and the referencing is extensive (more than 1000 references in 33 pages). Given the prevalent role of hydride reduction reactions in organic synthesis, many practitioners will want to have ready access to this book, and it is a must for all science libraries.




Review: Reductions by the Alumino- and Borohydrides in Organic Synthesis (by J. Seyden-Penne)
K. Smith, Appl. Organometal. Chem. 12, 881 (1998)

This book is an update from the first edition, which was published in 1991. In the first edition there was an attempt at comprehensive coverage of the topic, but in the second edition any such attempt has been forced to be abandoned. Nevertheless, this second edition is packed with information, cites around 1200 references, and provides a very useful source for anyone contemplating a complex hydride reduction.

The book is organized into five chapters, followed by 11 pages of synoptic tables, then the references and a subject index.

Chapter 1 introduces the most commonly used reagents, indicates their stability and solubility characteristics and briefly describes their main applications. Chapters 2–5 present the reduction of the main functional groups, with reference to features of selectivity and compatibility.
Chapter 2 deals with cleavage of carbon–heteroatom single bonds (halides, sulphonates, epoxides, alcohols, ethers, ammonium salts etc).
Chapter 3, the largest chapter with over 100 pages, deals with reduction of double bonds (other than C=C bonds). The bulk of the chapter (85 pages) concerns reductions of carbonyl compounds, including sections on different kinds of carbonyl compounds, asymmetric reductions and regioselectivity of the reduction of a,b-unsaturated derivatives. The chapter also covers imines, enamines, nitrogen heterocycles and oximes/hydrazones.
Chapter 4 deals with reduction of triple bonds and Chapter 5 with other derivatives (nitro compounds, azides, organometallics, and sulphur, phosphorus, silicon and boron compounds).

The entry point for many will be the synoptic tables. Here it is possible to look up a class of compound and choose a precursor substrate; the table will provide a list of reagents for the transformation and section references indicating where the reactions are discussed. The appropriate sections in Chapters 2–5 will provide the detailed discussion of those reactions and Chapter 1 will give an outline of the characteristics of the chosen reagent. Thus, the book is ideal for identifying the most useful references for any given reduction.

Because it is so densely packed with information, the text is somewhat difficult to read. This is almost unavoidable if the coverage is to remain so full and the book so short (220 pages), and the difficulty is easily outweighed by the value of the work as a source of reference and information.

This book is an imperative purchase for all chemical libraries and for any individuals who make regular use of complex hydride reductions.




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