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Understanding Molecular Simulation
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Author: Daan Frenkel, Berend Smit
List Price: $62.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0122673514
Publisher: Academic Press (15 October, 2001)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 23,136
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
Perfect for New Grad Students
This book is how I bootstrapped my way into being a molecular simulationist. Anyone who can program in some language can get started writing simple routines for the basic MD and MC simulations.I do Monte Carlo simulations at Princeton, and found this book to be the most helpful available for getting my research started. It is my most common reference, and is used extensively in writing background information for various research documents. However, after you have written your first few codes, you will pass the level of this book and need to move on. I use it less now than I did my first year. Every student in my group (Panagiotopoulos) has this book I think. And like me, they started with it, but moved on.
Rating: 4 out of 5
A nice disappointment
The title of the book is overly ambitious and falls short on its promises. The book is a good introduction to Molecular Mechanics (MM), Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) methods, with detailed descriptions of the methods used and FORTRAN (pseudo)code, covering from the basics to some middle-level and some advanced algorithms.
But it does NOT cover all the fields of Molecular Modelling, just the three mentioned (MM, MD and MC), there's no coverage of quantum mechanics methods, nor QSAR or other technologies. And, while it described the algorithms, I can't think of it going all the way through up to building applications. For this, Rapaport's makes a better job, and for a general intro to Molecular Modelling, Grant & Richards' Computational Chemistry is more comprehensive (albeit at a more superficial level). Nor does it provide much detail on the methods used in modelling biological macromolecules, an increasing application field for the methods discussed in the book.
All in all, this book fails to satisfy its cover title, it won't introduce to the whole field (just the areas of MM, MD and MC) nor does it go up to application level. But it IS a REAL GOOD introduction to the subjects covered and their basic algorithms,
with sample code, detailed descriptions and plenty of references to specialized articles, texts and resources.
Rating: 5 out of 5
An excellent introduction
This book is an excellent introduction to the field of molecular dynamics simulation. It is easy to follow for a scientist entering the field and at the same time contains overview of most critical topics in MD simulation. The book's major goal is to describe how to simulate liquids, however it also mentions briefly the methods for gas and liquid simulations. List of references for further readings is very useful and complete.
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