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เนื้อหาย่อ : To the Instructor Fundamentals of Chemistry has been written to describe those fundamentals to students with little or no prior formal training in chemistry. It covers the same material that is covered in other preparatory chemistry books but sometimes in a slightly different order or with a slightly different emphasis. The order and the emphasis are those that I have found most useful in teaching beginning chemis- try. The material in the book was class-tested at the University of Illinois, where I teach, and modifed to reflect the reactions of the some 150 students who have used it. Pedagogical approach In writing this text, I have kept firmly in mind a picture of the student who will be using it. I have visualized a capable student who is interested in science but has not yet been successfully introduced to chemistry. This student is a little apprehensive because chemistry has the reputation of being difficult and of requiring a lot of math and a lot of memorization. Word problems are not easy for this student, nor is formal thinking. Because I believe that chemistry is a reasonable subject and its fundamen- tal concepts accessible to the average person, I have tried to maintain my writing at the same level I would use in describing a concept to an adult of average ability. The accessibility of chemistry is sometimes impaired because chemists observe events a little differently than do lay observers. For this rea- son, beginners need to be introduced to the types of observations that are made in studying things chemical, to the patterns of thought that are used in building chemical models from these observations, and above all to the vocabulary that a chemist uses. In teaching these patterns of thought, I try to start from where the beginner is, to show where we are going, and to suggest ways of getting there. At the same time, I believe it important that the student realize that chemistry is a developing science, that what we learn today will be subjected to further study and modified as scientists develop new ways of looking at events and new equipment by which to measure properties.