CHEM 110B
Physical Chemistry: Introduction to Statistical Mechanics and Kinetics
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; tutorial, one hour. Requisites: courses 110A, 113A, Mathematics 32B. Kinetic theory of gases, principles of statistical mechanics, statistical thermodynamics, equilibrium structure and free energy, relaxation and transport phenomena, macroscopic chemical kinetics, molecular-level reaction dynamics. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - This class was interesting, we all thought we were going to fail but it honestly wasn't that bad? Homework was killer and insanely time consuming and tests were also quite difficult but they were open note which helped quite a bit. Bensimon himself is an incredibly smart and helpful person and I would highly recommend attending office hours as you really get the most out of the course and learn how to solve the test problems! Much better than most other pchem professors
Winter 2023 - This class was interesting, we all thought we were going to fail but it honestly wasn't that bad? Homework was killer and insanely time consuming and tests were also quite difficult but they were open note which helped quite a bit. Bensimon himself is an incredibly smart and helpful person and I would highly recommend attending office hours as you really get the most out of the course and learn how to solve the test problems! Much better than most other pchem professors
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - Gelbart is a phenomenal human and teacher. I took this class primarily for the instructor since so many people were raving about him and what they say is all true. Gelbart has this higher level of consciousness in what it means to be a scientist that I learned so much about the importance of fundamental science, not just statistical thermodynamics. The class itself turned out to be a lot of fun too. Although the class sounds intimidating, Gelbart made it fun and interacting with him is great. If you don't attend office hours to talk to him then you are completely blowing your opportunity with this man. I personally found the class itself a bit easy but that's because I was taking some math intensive classes already so I was well versed in all the calculus you had to do on the exams. His tests were basically just math and the most challenging parts were some of the limits you had to evaluate. The exams ramped up in difficulty where the final was fairly challenging, so make sure to understand all the mathematical steps you have to do when deriving things. He cares more about understanding the derivation than application of the subject. This subject can get insanely difficult if he asked us to solve a brand new problem but he's fair and everything on the tests are very similar to the problem sets. The problem sets do take time if you legitimately do them but if you want full credit it on it you can completely BS it since they only look for completion, but that means your test scores might not be that great. He has a very slow teaching style and its very auditory so things might get a bit boring at times but he uploads really great lecture notes so it isn't a concern.
Spring 2018 - Gelbart is a phenomenal human and teacher. I took this class primarily for the instructor since so many people were raving about him and what they say is all true. Gelbart has this higher level of consciousness in what it means to be a scientist that I learned so much about the importance of fundamental science, not just statistical thermodynamics. The class itself turned out to be a lot of fun too. Although the class sounds intimidating, Gelbart made it fun and interacting with him is great. If you don't attend office hours to talk to him then you are completely blowing your opportunity with this man. I personally found the class itself a bit easy but that's because I was taking some math intensive classes already so I was well versed in all the calculus you had to do on the exams. His tests were basically just math and the most challenging parts were some of the limits you had to evaluate. The exams ramped up in difficulty where the final was fairly challenging, so make sure to understand all the mathematical steps you have to do when deriving things. He cares more about understanding the derivation than application of the subject. This subject can get insanely difficult if he asked us to solve a brand new problem but he's fair and everything on the tests are very similar to the problem sets. The problem sets do take time if you legitimately do them but if you want full credit it on it you can completely BS it since they only look for completion, but that means your test scores might not be that great. He has a very slow teaching style and its very auditory so things might get a bit boring at times but he uploads really great lecture notes so it isn't a concern.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - When you imagine a stereotypical upper div chem class, this is what it is. Lectures use a camera for hand-written notes, and they are not recorded/no slides/no lecture notes so you need to go. With that being said, the grading is very fair (40% homework, 20% take-home midterm, 40% final) and the class is curved pretty generously. He is also very nice and helpful in office hours and the tests were doable. The median on the take-home midterm was 96% but the median on the final was 59% so make sure to study for that. Both textbooks can be found online for free
Fall 2024 - When you imagine a stereotypical upper div chem class, this is what it is. Lectures use a camera for hand-written notes, and they are not recorded/no slides/no lecture notes so you need to go. With that being said, the grading is very fair (40% homework, 20% take-home midterm, 40% final) and the class is curved pretty generously. He is also very nice and helpful in office hours and the tests were doable. The median on the take-home midterm was 96% but the median on the final was 59% so make sure to study for that. Both textbooks can be found online for free
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