Chemistry Books for the Smart?

enzyme asks: "A couple of weeks back, chrisd asked for recommendations on computer books. This made we wonder: What are the great chemistry books? I want to know what books the chemistry geeks recommend! What are good books on chemistry - textbooks, popular science...whatever! Anything that an intelligent person without a PhD in chemistry can comprehend. What can I read to help me understand chemistry - my old chemistry textbooks don't really do this."

Comments

Empiricism

[PhysicsGenius]

Indeed. Before I was a physics genius I spent a few years becoming a chemistry genius. Eventually I gave it all up when I realized it isn't a science at all. It is more like zoology, merely a tabulation of observations made. Yes, this can be helpful for someone that needs to have a particular compound, assuming that compound has ever been seen before. But no, it isn't really a science in the sense of supporting hypotheses or making predictions.

It is not without reason that the most famous errors in the history of science have all come from the field of chemistry. Cold fusion claims came from chemists. Lowell, the man who thought he say canals on Mars, was trained as a chemist. Even Isaac Newton wasted untold years of his life on alchemy, the unscientific (and almost identical) forerunner of modern day chemistry.

When young people come to me expressing an interest in chemistry, I ask them if they enjoy mindlessly copying out lists of information. For those few that enthuse about this mundane activity I advise them to go ahead. But to everyone who recoils in horror at the boredom I imply, I tell them "get into science instead".