The aim of the book is to introduce students to the basic ideas of inorganic chemistry and to show where they come from. It starts from chemical observations, and develops the ideas from these. It complements texts that start from the quantum theory of atoms and molecules and take a more physical approach. Educators have responded to this by contending that what students need to do is not learn facts but the principles and theories behind the facts. The problem with this approach is that chemical principles and theories are only able to explain a small fraction of all the facts. Teaching inorganic chemistry in this way therefore leaves students ignorant of many important facts.
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