By tackling the most central ideas in chemistry, Why Chemical Reactions Happen provides the reader with all the tools and concepts needed to think like a chemist. The text takes a unified approach to the subject, avoiding the traditional divisions of physical, inorganic and organic chemistry and so helps the reader to develop a real overview of chemical processes.

Why do certain substances react together in the way that they do? What determines the shape of molecules? And how can we predict whether a particular reaction will happen at all? Such questions lie at the heart of chemistry - the science of understanding the composition of substances, their reactions, and properties. While often fragmented into the strands of inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry, a full understanding of chemistry can only be gained by seeing the subject as a single, unified whole. Chemical Structure and Reactivity rises to the challenge of depicting the reality of chemistry. Offering a fresh approach to undergraduate teaching, it depicts the subject as a seamless discipline, showing how organic, inorganic, and physical concepts can be blended together to achieve the common goal of understanding chemical systems. With a lively and engaging writing style augmented throughout by purpose-drawn illustrations, and custom-developed online support, Chemical Structure and Reactivity alone makes taking an integrated approach in the teaching of chemistry a realistic proposition. Online Resource Centre: For students: * Custom developed multimedia content linked to the book, enabling students to investigate the concepts and phenomena presented in the book in a fully interactive way. * Question sets to help students master concepts and gain confidence through hands-on engagement. For lecturers: * Fully worked solutions to the exercises available through the Online Resource Centre. For registered adopters of the book: * Figures from the book in electronic format.

The iconic Periodic Table of the Elements is now in its most satisfyingly elegant form. This is because all the 'gaps' corresponding to missing elements in the seventh row, or period, have recently been filled and the elements named. But where do these names come from? For some, usually the most recent, the origins are quite obvious, but in others - even well-known elements such as oxygen or nitrogen - the roots are less clear. Here, Peter Wothers explores the fascinating and often surprising stories behind how the chemical elements received their names. Delving back in time to explore the history and gradual development of chemistry, he sifts through medieval manuscripts for clues to the stories surrounding the discovery of the elements, showing how they were first encountered or created, and how they were used in everyday lives. As he reveals, the oldest-known elements were often associated with astronomical bodies, and connections with the heavens influenced the naming of a number of elements. Following this, a number of elements, including hydrogen and oxygen, were named during the great reform of chemistry, set amidst the French Revolution. While some of the origins of the names were controversial (and indeed incorrect - some saying, for instance, that oxygen might be literally taken to mean 'the son of a vinegar merchant'), they have nonetheless influenced language used around the world to this very day. Throughout, Wothers delights in dusting off the original sources, and bringing to light the astonishing, the unusual, and the downright weird origins behind the names of the elements so familiar to us today.