Ask HN: Good beginner resources to learn chemistry

[ranc1d]

I never did much chemistry in school or college and mainly concentrated on biology and physics. I've started to gain an interest in Chemistry especially Biochemistry but am finding my lack of basics holding me back.

Does anyone have any good resources online or books that they could recommend?

[papaf]

If you have a physics background you might find General Chemistry from Linus Pauling interesting and approachable:

https://www.amazon.com/General-Chemistry-Dover-Books/dp/0486...

[ranc1d → papaf]

Thanks that looks good will take a look!

[fuzzfactor]

One of the most inspiring things about chemistry texts or videos is that they are tales from laboratories you don't have.

That's also one of the biggest disadvantages.

You'll never have all those labs, if you actually want a lab, you'll be lucky when you only have a single one. What kind of lab would that be anyway? Your choices will always be dramatically limited compared to the possibilities, so you'll have to make the best of what you can get. And it's always been that way and will never change.

It's good to decide early how suitable hands-on work and/or experimentation are going to be for your particular situation.

But I don't think you can make a very informed decision without a lab of some kind to contribute student experiences at a comparable level to the classroom-type work. Not completely different than high school or university programs.

Go through a high school general chemisrty text with its associated elementary lab manual, and skim through the entire things in tandem, without slowing down to go deep or even begin to grasp any difficult concepts, just get through it fast and complete. Don't do the problems don't do the lab exercises (_experiments_), just look at what they are and keep in mind how you would develop the proficiency for these efforts in the future, and that the answers and results are available.

Think about what kind of progress you would like to make after that. Some directions will be much more mathematically intense than others, and there is also an infinite choice of toxicity and unstable reactions in a most natural science way. Some lab work will be very expensive, and other efforts may often come within reach at low cost. You should now be getting an idea of what achievement it takes mathematically and in a hands-on way with chemicals & apparatus, to go toward an intended goal. These achievements must come in advance or in parallel to the chemistry books.

With that underway go through another high school textbook/labmanual covering introductory material from a different educator's point of view. It should be a lot quicker this time, you might even slow down and think about some _homework_ problems rather than just reading past them this time. The difference will be enlightening, you will find details and entire chapter concepts not in common between both texts.

One key universal item is common ordinary pH. At this level I suggest a simple lab with litmus & pH sensitive papers, aquarium and swimming-pool or spa reagents and other basic low-hazard chemicals like vinegar and baking soda. More potent acids & alkalies are not for the faint at heart, like muriatic acid or soda lye. You're going to need safety glasses anyway, plus simple glassware and maybe a buret or weighing scale for measurement, or at least medicine droppers so you can count drops. Each type of material or apparatus has its own sometimes extensive documentation available, and this needs to be studied just as much or more than the textbook concepts, especially the health, safety, and environmental considerations.

At this point you should be able to structure a way to make major progress toward mastery of a single concept such as pH at the high school level, according to both those texts and lab manuals, without exactly following any one particular curriculum, and with no real fancy lab. With no deadlines or exams, make as much or as little progress as you would like. The chapters on pH, which you first quickly skimmed, will now each require more hours of study than the initial skimming of the entire year's textbook.

You can refer to other sources, or more advanced sources to help get you past the high school level for pH alone, and you will find that referring to some of the non-pH chapters will still be helpful even when your focus is intentionally limited to something like pH for expediency.

You'll be going through the university-level general chemistry books next, so might as well get the books in advance so they can serve as references beforehand to help you more quicky get past high school level.

Once you have exceeded the high school level to your satisfaction for pH, then start all over again skimming the university-level freshman chemistry texts which cover about the same material but at a university level this time.

Keep or improve your mathematical chops to your desired amount as you go, and for hands-on experience at least get a second-hand pH meter and electrodes and develop the supporting apparatus to zero in and get you past freshman pH if nothing else.

[ranc1d → fuzzfactor]

Wow great post thanks for that!

I actually did a semester on introductory chemistry but was completely over my head and kind of scraped by and forgot most of it, didn't help that I hadn't done secondary/high school chemistry. I guess what has really sparked my interest is that I've gotten into brewing beer and the chemistry/biology side of things has made me interested again. The impact of different minerals present in the water to the biochemistry side of brewing so would just like to understand better the chemistry behind it. pH plays an important role in beer making so was already planning to get a pH meter anyway but could use it for other experiments as you've mentioned