Dear Reader,

Please accept my apologies for the poor recent support for Understanding the Properties of Matter.

The basic issue arose because the software that I used to create the site (Adobe Go Live) became obolete making editing a tedious manual job using bare HTM. Then the long-standing web host for the site went out of business and I was unable to move the site to a new web-hosting service. This was because of a tragic combination of busy-ness and technical incompetence. And with one thing and another, I have been very tardy at moving resources from my back up files to this new WordPress hosted blog.

But here we are and I have decided to take the opportunity to make a few changes.

Free!

From now on, the pdfs of each chapter will be available for free unrestricted download. Why? 

As I explained on the previous, now lost, website, writing academic texts is not a money-making activity. I wrote the book because I loved this subject. And I still do.

It might seem that in order to make the book last beyond a few years one might rely on publishers to promote the text and perhaps provide some kind of ongoing support. Unfortunately there has been absolutely no support from the publishers – I am sure they have more important things to do than sell this type of book. Additionally the text book has become very expensive. So in order to make the book sustainable I think the best option is to simply release it. Some students are not well off and free is a great price!

Support

I am now a retired person and although I am happily very busy, I hope to have some time to improve the support for the book. In particular I hope to:

• Reconstruct the functionality from the previous web site in terms of downloads of tables, and figures.
• Revise the figures to use colour where relevant and incorporate them into PowerPoint slides.
• Revise the answers to the questions and the extended questions.
• Publish the tables of errata that I have been sent!

Plus whatever else occurs to me – or that you ask me to do!

I intend to have a blitz on this during this the last week of March 2021. There are a thousand technical difficulties with every single step on that list of bullet points, from file incompatibility errors to appalling editors. But these details don’t matter. My aim is to have the site presentable again by the end of March 202: do let me know if there is anything you want to see.

Best wishes

Michael