Molecular Dynamics Simulation: Elementary Methods (Wiley Professional)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 489 pages
• Published by: Wiley-Interscience
• Edition: 1st Edition March 14, 1997
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 047118439X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0471184393
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.6 pounds

Product Description
"Provides a lot of reading pleasure and many new insights." -Journal of Molecular Structure

"This is the most entertaining, stimulating and useful book which can be thoroughly recommended to anyone with an interest in computer simulation." -Contemporary Physics

"A very useful introduction . . . more interesting to read than the often dry equation-based texts." -Journal of the American Chemical Society

Written especially for the novice, Molecular Dynamics Simulation demonstrates how molecular dynamics simulations work and how to perform them, focusing on how to devise a model for specific molecules and then how to simulate their movements using a computer. This book provides a collection of methods that until now have been scattered through the literature of the last 25 years. It reviews elements of sampling theory and discusses how modern notions of chaos and nonlinear dynamics explain the workings of molecular dynamics.

Stresses easy-to-use molecules
* Provides sample calculations and figures
* Includes four complete FORTRAN codes

Publisher Description
Presented here is a methodologically-oriented treatment of molecular dynamics basics as they relate to hard spheres and Lennard-Jones atoms. The focus is on ``why'' molecular dynamics works and how it is used to estimate properties. The structure revolves around Aristotle's theory of causation in which a complete explanation for a thing necessarily encompasses four causes: material, formal, efficient and final cause.

Reader Reviews
If you're just getting started in molecular dynamics, especially if it's not really where you wanted to be in the first place, this may be the book for you. The pace is brisk. Readers unsure of their calculus or Newtonian physics may struggle. The brief first chapter addresses the basics: what are the questions, which ones can computation address, and with what result. Chapters two to five develop successively more refined models up through Lennard-Jones soft-sphere models. That puts the reader about half-way through the book, to the point where it becomes less about physics and more about real chemistry. The next two chapters deal with the basics of thermodynamics and a bit on evaluating stability of the computed results. The last third of the book is mostly appendices. The first three are decidedly of interest to the chemistry beginner, but the next dozen or so could have been dropped with no harm to the book's main content. "A Random-Number Generator" and "Conventions for Naming Variables in Fortran" are redundant and irrelevant (respectively) in most contemporary computing environments. If someone needs computing advice at that level, they're probably not ready for the load this book presents. What's good is very good, though. The introduction material is sensible and adequately rigorous, with many and varied references at the end of each chapter. My interest in computational chemistry is mostly in the computation, not in the chemistry. Given that computational chemistry is a huge field, Haile has done a good job of keeping a sharp focus on one range of techniques and on a specific level of reader. //wiredweird