Preface to the Second Edition
This book is the second edition of Mathematical Physical Chemistry. Mathematics is
a common language of natural science including physics, chemistry, and biology.
Although the words mathematical physics and physical chemistry (or chemical
physics) are commonly used, mathematical physical chemistry sounds rather uncommon. Therefore, it might well be reworded as the mathematical physics for chemists.
The book title could have been, for instance, “The Mathematics of Physics and
Chemistry” accordingly, in tribute to the famous book that was written three-quarters
of a century ago by H. Margenau and G. M. Murphy. Yet, the word mathematical
physical chemistry is expected to be granted citizenship, considering that chemistry
and related interdisciplinary fields such as materials science and molecular science
are becoming increasingly mathematical.
The main concept and main theme remain unchanged, but this book’s second
edition contains the theory of analytic functions and the theory of continuous groups.
Both the theories are counted as one of the most elegant theories of mathematics. The
mathematics of these topics is of a somewhat advanced level and something like a
“sufficient condition” for chemists, whereas that of the first edition may be a
prerequisite (or a necessary condition) for them. Therefore, chemists (or may be
physicists as well) can creatively use the two editions. In association with these
major additions to the second edition, the author has disposed the mathematical
topics (the theory of analytic functions, Green’s functions, exponential functions of
matrices, and the theory of continuous groups) at the last chapter of individual parts
(Part I through Part IV).
At the same time, the author has also made several specific revisions including the
introductory discussion on the perturbation method and variational method, both of
which can be effectively used for gaining approximate solutions of various quantummechanical problems. As another topic, the author has presented the recent progress
on organic lasers. This topic is expected to help develop high-performance lightemitting devices, one of the important fields of materials science. As in the case of
the first edition, readers benefit from going freely back and forth across the whole
topics of this book.
vii
This book is the second edition of Mathematical Physical Chemistry. Mathematics is
a common language of natural science including physics, chemistry, and biology.
Although the words mathematical physics and physical chemistry (or chemical
physics) are commonly used, mathematical physical chemistry sounds rather uncommon. Therefore, it might well be reworded as the mathematical physics for chemists.
The book title could have been, for instance, “The Mathematics of Physics and
Chemistry” accordingly, in tribute to the famous book that was written three-quarters
of a century ago by H. Margenau and G. M. Murphy. Yet, the word mathematical
physical chemistry is expected to be granted citizenship, considering that chemistry
and related interdisciplinary fields such as materials science and molecular science
are becoming increasingly mathematical.
The main concept and main theme remain unchanged, but this book’s second
edition contains the theory of analytic functions and the theory of continuous groups.
Both the theories are counted as one of the most elegant theories of mathematics. The
mathematics of these topics is of a somewhat advanced level and something like a
“sufficient condition” for chemists, whereas that of the first edition may be a
prerequisite (or a necessary condition) for them. Therefore, chemists (or may be
physicists as well) can creatively use the two editions. In association with these
major additions to the second edition, the author has disposed the mathematical
topics (the theory of analytic functions, Green’s functions, exponential functions of
matrices, and the theory of continuous groups) at the last chapter of individual parts
(Part I through Part IV).
At the same time, the author has also made several specific revisions including the
introductory discussion on the perturbation method and variational method, both of
which can be effectively used for gaining approximate solutions of various quantummechanical problems. As another topic, the author has presented the recent progress
on organic lasers. This topic is expected to help develop high-performance lightemitting devices, one of the important fields of materials science. As in the case of
the first edition, readers benefit from going freely back and forth across the whole
topics of this book.
vii