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please recomennd an Organic Chemistry text

BradS

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I'm looking for an undergraduate level, relatively comprehensive and self contained introductory Organic Chemistry text.

Any recommendations?
 
If its just for reference, you might be able to pick up a used one at a college library for a buck or so. Stryer was the one I used to have.
 
...not just for reference. I would like to learn some of this stuff. My formal education was predominately in Mathematics. I have only a minimal background (two semesters) in General Chem. Now, I find myself wishing to understand how and why some of these things we use combine and what happens when they decompose...and why.

I commute with a guy who is a research chemist. Today we were talking about Metol and Hydroquinone...and he was drawing little diagrams and...well, it's all terribly interesting but, I felt like he was speaking greek about half the time....and I think it is probably not really that hard to get at least some of the fundamentals.
 
Morrison and Boyd - it was the one I used in college (mid-80s), and it seems pretty reasonable. Morrison and Boyd was a popular text and there were several editions from the 60s to the 80s.

When I was in high school, I used to peruse Fieser and Fieser (from the 1950s), and it seems like a good text.

Try Google books to see if there is one you like.
 
I dont think photography rates big in the world of organic chemistry.I have "Organic Chemistry" pp1187 by Stanley Pine but can only find 9 lines on hydroquinone.
A specialist book like "Basic Photo Science" by H J Walls and G G Attridge may have more chemistry of relevance in it.
 
Organic chem is a very broad field, my suggestion would be to find a text that is tailored specifically to film-related chemistry, with enough of the p-chem and solid state physics that you need to make real headway. There should be some focused review articles on this subject, maybe Ron can suggest some.

Not to dissuade you from launching into a textbook, but... the standard organic texts are big and thick and dreaded by most of the students I know! And the emphasis is mostly bio-organic, not the kind of stuff that is most relevant to film chemistry. I mean, you may not get more than "there are some very strong reducers and oxidizers" and that's about it.
 
Try Haist. It is tailored to photographic chemistry and includes both organic and inorganic.

PE
 
I agree with Photo Engineer. This is a FANTASTIC book if you can find it.
However if you just need a Chemistry book try ebay there at over 3000 listed now, may sell for under $5.
Also not all photo Chemistry is Organic Chemistry. AgX has no carbon neither does KI, etc. So don't write off an inorganic chemistry text.
Finally remember the library is free. Your local on may be able to order in the Haist Book.
 
Grant has a number of copies of the reprint of the 1st edition that he will sell. His address is here on APUG in several places. I give you a 50:50 chance of finding it though. Then I will have to go look it up when I get 10 or 20 notes asking me please for help as the APUG searches have failed them.

I have begun to fear posting this factoid.

PE
 

perhaps,just a hint...a yes/no

I Grant Haist still in Naples?
 
MikeSeb said:
Why don't you just mortify your own flesh with broken glass or barbed wire?

Click to expand...

Shit! you made me spray coffee all over the cube!

(still laughing!)
 
  • Deleted member 2924
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Thanks Kirk. The Morrison and Boyd text actually looks well suited to my needs and, considering the reviews on Amazon.com, appears to be something like the canonical O-Chem text. Just what I was looking for. I'll see if I can pick up a copy at the used bookstore tomorrow.
 

Thanks for your concern. I spent nearly fifteen years at university...I figure the day I stop learning is the day I die. I too avoided this stuff then....but, now, I find that maybe, there was something that I cheated myself out of. Kinda like all those art classes that I also avoided.

I just need to have a clear picture in my head of what is Para and what is Ortho and what the little hexagons are, etc....A biology bent wouldn't hurt either. Maybe it would help me in one of the other areas of great interest to me....soil chemistry and nutrient cycling.

So if I can pick up a good readable text for not much money and get through four or five chapters...well, I'm sure that I'll be satisfied..and hopefully, I can better understand at least some of the specialized language.

 
Brad;

The o-, m- and p- are not much used today. Most texts I see use 2, 3 and 4 instead. (or 5 and 6 if needed). M&B still will use the o, m and p designations intermixed with 2, 3 and 4 though IIRC.

PE
 
Photo Engineer said:
Brad;

The o-, m- and p- are not much used today. Most texts I see use 2, 3 and 4 instead. (or 5 and 6 if needed). M&B still will use the o, m and p designations intermixed with 2, 3 and 4 though IIRC.

PE
Click to expand...

See...there's just so much stuff I missed along the way. M&B sounds more and more like it'll fit the bill.

About six months ago, I was reading Economics (Samuleson) and last year, Architecture (Trachtenburg?)....tomorrow, O-Chem. All good stuff.

Thanks all.
 
Unless updated, M&B is current to the early to mid 60s. I taught in grad school using that book when I was a graduate assistant and I had to sub in the classroom.

PE
 
The Morrison and Boyd I used was from 1985 or so. And it's not biochem influenced, as the whole biotechnologies thing had not really taken off by then. It's pretty stock, straight-forward O-chem.
 
Our undergraduate text in the mid-80s was Kemp and Vellacio, but Morrison and Boyd was also heavily used and recommended.
 
Peter Sykes' "Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemstry" held my hand and helped me survive the most hated part of my scientific education. It's a daft price new, but the start of year student-to-student textbook recycling that is about to begin will see plenty of copies available at a reasonable cost.

It is also worth mentioning that most of what happens once the sensitisers have been synthesised is usually taught under the heading of Physical Chemistry rather than Organic. I can't recommend a book, but there are several threads here discussing classic papers in the field.
 
L.F.A. MAson, Photographic Processing Chemistry, is another excellent publication, although not an organic chemistry book it's probably more useful, I say that and I studied Organic chemistry at University.

Ian
 
Among the standard textbooks these days are the ones by Solomons, McMurry, and Maitland Jones (especially Solomons and McMurry). Older editions are fine (they can be had very cheap at places like abebooks.com). The old standards (Morrison and Boyd, Streitweiser, Kemp, etc.) are good but there are now more "modern" ways of presenting the material.

Any good introductory book will give you the basics, but as others have said, you may not find much of photographic interest in a general textbook. The redox chemistry of organic molecules doesn't get covered in much detail in basic texts, for example.
 
so I made the trek over to the used bookstore today. Finding not even a single copy of M&B in any edition, I picked up Edwin S. Gould, "Mechanism and Structure in Organic Chemistry" - first, (c) 1959 in nice condition. I am dubious of its usefulness but, it does look interesting.
 
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