This is simply the funniest and most enjoyable book on theoretical inorganic chemistry I've ever read. Its format is close to your typical bedside table novel, lively informal and packed with the most awesome qualitative insights on bonding with molecular orbital theory without the need to resort to hardcore mathematics. It also has some amusing puns and jokes mixed with the enthusiasm of conveying this knowledge. The more interested reader should also read Jeremy Burdett's "Chemical Bonding in Solids" for a more detailed account of the quantum chemical and solid state aspects involved. All in all 140 pages of pure pleasure.

This book bridges the language gap between chemistry and condensed matter physics. Starting from the language that all chemists are comfortable with - that of molecular orbitals - Hoffman builds up the idea of bonding in extended structures (solids) as if a solid was just a giant molecule. This is done with a minimum of mathematics, mostly using simple and graphical representation. As a primer to the area of solid state chemistry, this book is invaluable.

I'm not sure if physicists, starting from the other end of the language will find it as useful as a chemist, but it should be straightforward for them as well, giving them the chemist's point of view (language).

This is a short book, and wisely does not try to exceed its boundries, that of an introduction/overview. For a more mathematical treatment, I would suggest Burdett's "Chemical Bonding in Solids." If you only want an introduction written in plain language with lots of graphics, this is the book for you.

This book bridges a gap between molecular orbital theory and the empirical/intuitive way chemists think about bonding in molecules. From there, it opens up vistas in extended systems (e.g. solids, conductive polymers) that most ordinary "molecular" chemists think of as foreign and forbidding because the language and tools used to treat them are those of solid state physicists with which most chemists are (regrettably) unfamiliar. Hoffmann brings all this good stuff home to chemists, without the bludgeon of complicated mathematics, inviting us in, showing us how much we already know. My own background is both physics and traditional synthetic organic/organometallic chemistry. Until I read this book, I had struggled to see how the physics and chemistry meet. This book has really bridged the gap.

Roald Hoffmann's "Chemistry Imagined" is not only a fascinating book about chemistry: it is also about live, society, history, art, creative thinking. Through several small tales, Hoffmann show to the readers an insightful view of how chemistry is the central science, its contributions to actual society life style, its importance in economy and live and, maybe the most important concept, its strong relationship with art. In some way, the creative process for science is the same that for art. The excellents illustrations made by Vivian Torrence, are the best landscape where the readers can "imagine the chemistry" behind the words of Hoffmann. A must for all the people with an interest in chemistry or science (or, as I said, art).

This collection of essays about the nature and practice of chemistry is as rich and diverse as the subject itself. It describes what it is like to be a chemist and the undercurrent of ideas that define chemistry as a unique and worthy endeavor. This book should be must reading for every student of science. With its clear and lucid style, it reminded me in some ways of my other favorite author, Stephen Jay Gould. I couldn't put it down. One last comment: The heavy coated paper adds clarity and crispness to the words and illustrations, well worth the extra cost. Very nice. Thanks Columbia University Press.

Science is exploration, both systematic and creative, and as such, it is an activity innate to humans.

"Oxygen" offers an insider's glimpse into two facets of science often shrouded in mystery, but filled with expressions of human splendor--and folly: the struggle for recognition of ones scientific discoveries and the awarding of a Nobel Prize for discoveries deemed singularly important.

The playwrights, Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann, have each contributed their own singular scientific discoveries and literary creations to the world. They use the occasion of the centenary of the Nobel Prizes to mirror fictional experiences involving the historical chemists Lavoisier, Priestley, and Scheele--and the women in their lives--with the arguments and self-reflections of a committee of modern-day Swedish scientists trying to award a retro-Nobel for the most important discovery in chemistry before 1901.

Both sets of characters, those of the 18th Century who discovered oxygen and those of the 21st who seek to honor that discovery, act out the passions that drive the men and women who pursue science--and do so in ways at home in either century. The play reveals to the reader, whether a student of science (of any age) or not, the issues and emotions that underlie a scientist's compulsion to question, and hopefully to understand, the workings of the natural world, all the while striving for primacy in discovery. The book offers a voyage of discovery worth taking.

The year is 1777- the American Revolution and the chemical revolution are both burning brightly. In a Stockholm sauna, Mary Priestley and Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier, the wives of Joseph Priestley and Antoine Lavoisier, and Sara Margaretha Pohl, the companion of Carl Wilhelm Scheele, open this imaginative play and set the stage for the scientific, emotional and ethical struggles that follow. It is a tempestuous period: the wealthy Lavoisier was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1794. Joseph Priestley, a founder of the Unitarian Church and also a friend of Franklin, was forced to flee England for America, as a mob burned his church to the ground.

The authors of this play comfortably inhabit both of C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures". Roald Hoffmann is a winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Carl Djerassi performed the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive. Prior to "Oxygen", Hoffmann had published widely acclaimed poetry and other "cross cultural books" for scientists and non-scientists while Djerassi had published successful novels as well as a play and a book of poems.

Nobel Prizes are awarded to living practioners and the practice has been, where sharing is appropriate- usually in the sciences- no more than three co-awardees. But in 2001, the hundredth anniversary of the Nobel Prize, Astrid Rosenquist, the first female chair of a chemistry Nobel committee springs two surprises on her three male committee members. The first is that the Swedish Academy of Sciences will begin a new Retro-Nobel Prize for early discoveries. The second is the participation of a mysterious and alluring recorder or "amanuensis" named Ulla Zorn.

The play alternates scenes between the Court of King Carl Gustav the Third and the Stockholm of 2001. The discussion of candidates by the modern committee rapidly converges to the discovery of oxygen and the understanding of fire that transformed chemistry into a modern science. The problem is this-we now know that Scheele first discovered oxygen around 1771-2; Priestley discovered it totally independently in 1774, disclosed his discovery to Lavoisier during a visit to Paris in that year and published first. History proves that Scheele also disclosed his discovery in a letter addressed to Lavoisier two weeks before Priestley's visit. Lavoisier never responded to Scheele's letter. But Priestley and Scheele did not understand the significance of their discovery. They believed that the new "fire air" sucked an essence of fire (phlogiston) from burning matter. It was Lavoisier who understood that burning, rusting and respiration all involved addition of oxygen (oxidation) rather than loss of something to the air. One committee member, Bengt Hjalmarsson, is reasonably fluent in French and is assigned Lavoisier. Scheele is assigned to Sune Kallstenius, comfortable in the German language frequently employed by Scheele. Ulf Svanholm is assigned Priestley. Not surprisingly they each become advocates for their "charges". But other human frailties emerge. Bengt and Astrid have a history. Ulf harbors a grudge against Sune, who he is convinced, caused him to be "scooped" on his major discovery. The stage has been set to play off the issues of scientific priority, ambition and motivation, complicated by human passions, among powerful women and men of the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries. Indeed, it is the women who, according to Ms Zorn, are "...usually expected to clean up the dirt" and so they do by clarifying history and moving the modern committee to an acceptable concensus.

The issue of priority for the discovery of oxygen is to be settled in The Judgement of Stockholm. Did Lavoisier, Scheele and Priestley ever meet together? Probably not- but what an exciting thought. And in the best tradition of modern science, the critical experiments of one must be performed by another. There are thrilling scenes here: Lavoisier performing Scheele's generation of "fire-air" under the latter's supervision; Antoine confiding his intuition about Scheele to Marie ("I trust him"); Joseph to Mary about Scheele ("I trust him"); Carl Wilhelm to Fru Pohl on Lavoisier ("I do not trust him"). And there is an extra bonus. There is evidence that to celebrate their chemical revolution, Antoine and Marie performed a brief play or masque. Alas, the script, if one ever existed in writing, is unknown. But Djerassi and Hoffmann offer us a delight- Marie, as "oxygen" publicly humiliates and vanquishes Antoine, as "phlogiston", in a performance witnessed, with amusement, by King Carl Gustav and with increasing discomfort and then consternation by the Priestleys, Scheele and Fru Pohl.

The twists, surprises and the denouement will be left for the discovery of the reader. The authors have succeeded wonderfully in combining solid history, with the informed nuances and rich humor of two of the world's most accomplished scientists. Hoffmann and Djerassi do not recognize the boundaries of the "Two Cultures" and readers of this play will be the richer as a result. One last thought- the number of actors in this play is quite small and the settings simple. A reading of the play can be readily staged by high school or college chemistry classes. What a way to enliven chemical history and bridge the sciences, humanities and fine arts!

Roald Hoffmann and Shira Leibowitz have worked together long and hard with a very ambitious project in mind, that is to establish or, better said, search and show possible connections between two of human cultural enterprises, religion (specifically Jewish religion) and science (particularly Chemistry).

Sh. Leibowitz's deep knowledge of the byblical books and commentaries, and R.Hoffmann's extensive knowledge in Chemistry, Physics, Art, and Poetry, make up a very rich treasure box from where they have picked up different items, which then they developed as trees with many branches, by connecting or associating ideas.

The tree metaphor also helps to express the divergent nature of their writing, without a specific idea to lay out, expose, prove, or simply develop. This characteristic in the process of the writing and specially the selection of items (somewhat by chance it seems), leaves the reader too much to himself, finding value in the text by his or her own wonderings, given that there is no conclusion established for the various links.

It is a different style, most writers aim to convince, they guide the reader with frequent reminders as returning to the point of departure, or flashbacks to see the path followed. In this book R.H and Sh.L. only draw a picture with elements of two cultures, they express an open minded view of reality, and of knowledge, as something that is built by each person with the materials at hand.

It's difficult to say what is it that one has learned after reading them, in the classical way, but there is a feeling of having travelled from the beginning of man's thought through the minds of many thoughtful men and women till our days, there is a feeling of the mind widenning, of an alertness that was not there before.

Indeed the style employed by the authors can in some ways be compared to that of the Talmud, which is an encyclopedia of Jewish law but often works quite associatively in presenting information. The authors have explored the synthetist view (also voiced by Maimonides and many contemporary orthodox Jewish scientists) that religion MUST BE reconcilable with scientific findings, even though they might not be at first glance. The Jewish sources are well researched. An intriguing read.