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เนื้อหาย่อ : To the Student Chemistry is fun. I don't mean to imply by "'fun" that chemistry is a laugh a minute. Like any other work, chemistry has its joys and heartaches, its triumphs and failures. By means of this book, I would like to share with you some of the excitement of chemistry and some of the joy of learning. Let me show you that you need not exclude chemistry from your learning experiences. You can learn enough chemistry to enrich your life--both now and long after the course is over-through a better understanding of the natural world, the technological forces confronting us, and the choices facing us as citizens in a scientific/technological society. How do our bodies work? Why do some foods make us fat? What happens when one goes on a low-carbohydrate diet? Why are we happy sometimes and sad at other times? What do drugs really do to our bodies? How can penicillin kill bacteria without killing the cells in our own bodies? Would you believe that chemists have found the answers to questions such as these? And chemists still seek to know. A thirst for knowledge and understand- ing plays a major part in the motivation of chemists. By choosing this course you have indicated that you are not interested in becoming a chemist. If you should change your mind, there are other courses and other books. This may be the last chemistry course that you will ever take. That does not mean you will be through with chemistry. We live in a chemical world-a world of drugs, biocides, fertilizers, nerve gases, defoliants, detergents, plastics, and pollutants. To understand that world you will need to know some chemistry. Even learning itself is a chemical process. Recent evidence indicates that something remembered is just a big molecule-or several big molecules-stored in the brain. Learning involves synthesis of these molecules, a synthesis triggered by electrical signals from the sense receptors-sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Memory and thought involve somehow a "'reading" of these big molecules. The mind-bending drugs seem to operate by confusing these electrical signals. You need a knowledge of chemistry to understand yourself. We live in changing times. Indeed, it is said that the only constant thing today is change. Mankind faces some of the greatest problems in the history of the species. These problems have no easy solutions. Quite often we are faced with great dilemmas-with choices restricted to who is to live and who is to die-and when. Save a few million now-and imperil the race in the