Post #294,151
10/4/07 6:04:33 AM
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Anyone for tennis^h^h chemistry?
Did you have a chemistry set? Dunno if recent comptometer scientology grads take a chem course (?)
PBS's Wired Science #101 showed an org. which collects original sets from the '40s onwards, while noting the decline to the point now, where: A so-called "Chemistry Set" describes "32 experiments" - yet contains No Chemicals! ... lawsuits .?. yet, a teacher noting how few accidents occurred during his tenure, cites the horrendous numbers of sports injuries == accepted as "normal".
[link|http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/slideshow/47/the+golden+age+of+chemistry+sets.html| Slideshow] about these evolving.. then devolving sets. As noted in broadcast, "... scared of chemistry, scared of science [we have] ripped the guts out of both."
Little Kevin must be protected from Sulfur, have antibiotics in hisBand-Aids\ufffd and a spectroscopically-pure floor mopping, daily -- (lest his immune system learn anything useful, for later. (But never go >there< ))
Since the '60s - US chem majors have dropped by 2/3. How many here, sans Google - can ??
Give a useful definition of pH (while explaining what a logarithm is, to a local Hottentot) Say the pH of pure water Describe what 'acid', 'base' means - or what a 'salt' is What's a 'buffer' - name a rilly Common one (and why you should have it around if you also have - any strong acids, bases around) 'Valence' - and, why are the Noble Gases er, noble?
No you don't have to answer each Q, certainly not to moi - but Could you?
Just wondering.. Damn.. my first set had sulfur, potassium nitrate, maybe permanganate,etc. but Not: the simple Iodine in Ammonium hydroxide trick, as described re one set in this collection -- that secret came later, through peers in class.
Ain't life a bit strange on those days when you [momentarily] realize that > you are! < Living-through an unprecedented dumbing-down / homogenizing of -- just about everything, despite the actual complexity of all those popular transistorized toys? (But then - they are all disposable, like the anonymous consumer-unit for whom marketed.)
{sigh}
Ashton That 'Golden Age of chemistry' they mention? - I vas dere, Charlie. So..lucky.. really. Poor safe-young bastards today - - - solitary confinement-with-joystick! and they Know Not What They Do Do
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Post #294,179
10/4/07 11:03:57 AM
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Oh, I was thinking of majoring in chemistry.
Then I noticed all the high school chemistry teachers I knew of were dying of cancer at an early age. My own chemistry instructor, Mr. Fesler, died in his 40s.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #294,292
10/5/07 8:31:02 PM
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Mine made it into the 80s; Linus into 90s etc.
[link|http://www.lbl.gov/Publications/Currents/Archive/Jul-22-2005.html| Al Ghiorso..] think radiochem and tiny half-lives and Ooooh: radiation - is here shown at a presentation on his 90th, in '05. (His 64th year as an active scientist.)
Confess I haven't looked for morbidity tables + chemists; still, when we choose (discover?) our calling -- that occurs usually at a time when we deem selves immortal. Similarly, look at orchestra conductors (or musicians) - most of whom make it way beyond actuarial tables.
Athletes? + steroids == long-term uglies, and most know this ... So...?
Perhaps Love extends life (?) ie. If you *really* loved chem, you'd have ignored such silly stats.
Rest case.
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Post #294,293
10/5/07 8:41:57 PM
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It all changed anyway
Back then I was told inorganic chemistry was cut and dried, organic chemistry was "organized witchcraft". Today the organic guys splice up molecules to order and inorganic is all tangled up with quantum physics.
I wasn't cut out to be a scientist anyway, that's just what the post Sputnik education mill was railroading into.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #294,294
10/5/07 8:50:54 PM
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(Me neither.. in the purist sense.)
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Post #294,190
10/4/07 2:27:07 PM
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And of course, for reading....
[link|http://www.amazon.com/Periodic-Table-Primo-Levi/dp/0805210415|http://www.amazon.co...evi/dp/0805210415]
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (speaking of old salts!)
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Post #294,191
10/4/07 2:57:55 PM
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I like this Periodic Table.
[link|http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Posters/index.html|Theodore Gray].
Cheers, Scott. (Who, if he had a chemistry set as a tyke doesn't remember it, but who enjoyed chemistry in school.)
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Post #294,217
10/4/07 9:08:46 PM
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Beautiful.
Smile, Amy
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Post #294,295
10/5/07 9:46:58 PM
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Early/mid 60s.
My stepfather was courting my mother at the time and he was a chemistry major. He bought me a set that had some fun stuff in it. A couple of explosions and several stink bombs later it was confiscated.
----------------------------------------- Atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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Post #294,296
10/5/07 11:40:11 PM
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In the 8th grade
My best friend Jimmy Farsakian and I set his garage on fire while playing with his chemistry set.
I miss Jimmy.
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Post #294,314
10/6/07 1:52:09 PM
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Wazzat supposed to come out the way it did?
i.e, "Peace over his memory; fortunately the fire brigade were able to save the rest of the house before digging for his scorched remains among those of the garage"?
Just wonderin', an' all...
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad] (I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Ah, the Germans: Masters of Convoluted Simplification. — [link|http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=1603|Jehovah]
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Post #294,316
10/6/07 1:54:58 PM
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:-) I had similar questions.
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Post #294,317
10/6/07 2:04:32 PM
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Nope
We lit up the bottle of alcohol used for the little bunsen burner to see what would happen and caught his garage on fire. We put it out ourselves with a hose, but oh, did we get in trouble!
Now that I think about it, it was probably 6th grade, not 8th grade. In 8th grade we had moved on to neighborhood football and street hockey. I was the only girl. It didnt occur to me that I got tackled *a lot* more than anyone else. I was kinda naive. A late bloomer, you might say.
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Post #294,329
10/6/07 6:29:09 PM
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Oh, not all that late, I'd say...
...if you were already worth tackling all that much by eighth grade. Some girls "bloom" a lot later than that.
:-)
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad] (I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Ah, the Germans: Masters of Convoluted Simplification. — [link|http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=1603|Jehovah]
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Post #294,357
10/7/07 10:38:33 AM
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Re: Oh, not all that late, I'd say...
*chuckle*
That's not what I meant. I had the boobies. I just wasnt all that interested in boys yet, so I naturally assumed they weren't interested in me in "that way". It made me mad that they were. I just wanted to play football and burn things down.
Matter of fact, I still want to play football and burn things down.
Boys are confusing.
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Post #294,299
10/6/07 1:18:41 AM
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I had a big double fold-out Gilbert set . . .
. . but I enhanced it with stuff from a set at least a generation older I found in my grandparents basement - evidence that what you got in a chemistry set had already declined by the mid fifties.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #294,327
10/6/07 5:52:24 PM
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Sounds like the set I bought in the 1950's.
My parents tossed it after I left for college.
I remember a Qualitative Chemistry lab where everyone was handed a different powder to test and identify. I identified the potassium permanganate on sight. Not enough hubris to just hand it back to the teacher. :)
Alex
Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law. -- Sophocles (496? - 406 BCE)
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Post #294,332
10/6/07 7:21:15 PM
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Where was your glycerin?
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Post #294,344
10/6/07 10:35:15 PM
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At this point, I'm not even sure it was in the kit.
Alex
Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law. -- Sophocles (496? - 406 BCE)
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Post #295,231
10/28/07 12:40:05 AM
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Bought a ChemCraft at garage sale
Just started it with the kids.
Ooohs and Ahhhs when HCl smoke pours out of angled tube - priceless.
The set is damaged and missing some stuff. You can get some really decent new ones - for about $150... If it catches with the kids, I may just go for it.
------
179. I will not outsource core functions. -- [link|http://omega.med.yale.edu/~pcy5/misc/overlord2.htm|.]
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