Erik's Chemistry
News Archive: August 1998
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June 1998 August 1998 September 1998

8/27/98 New Counter! Finally I have a reliable counter for this page. It is measuring the visits since today when I set up the counter.
We are wrapping up the Chemical Bonding chapter in Organic Chemistry, I expect to have the first note-set done and uploaded this weekend.
Please have patience as Chapter 7: Electronic Structure of Atoms is appended. Outline letter D is not near complete yet, but I am working on finishing it up.
The images in the image gallery have the correct bond angles, but are just ball and stick models, nothing more. If you would like to find out more about the software used to make the 3D models go to http://www.Rhino3d.com.
On an unrelated note, I learned a good way to clarify the idea of resonance structures in compounds. Resonance is like a rhinoceros. The rhinoceros is part dragon, part unicorn. The rhinoceros is real but the things that it is made up of do not really exist. Likewise with resonance. It is made of 2 or more structures that do not really exist, but resonance is a real thing.
The Bohr hydrogen animation has been removed from the main page to speed up load time. You can still see it on the Chemistry Links and Chemistry Images pages.
8/26/98 Section Complete! Chapter 7: Electronic Structure of Atoms is now complete!
Update! Metric Prefixes now has more prefixes and pronunciation key for most values. (yoctomole = .6022 atoms) :-)
There is another page of notes that continues where Chapter 7: Electronic Structure of Atoms left off and will be appended to it as time permits.
For those of you who are wondering the Chemical Bonding section under Organic Chemistry Notes will be added as soon as we finish covering the material in class.
Today my regular high school classes began (my college classes already began on monday). The usual first day stuff happened. Wait in line...Turn in form..Get in another line, cycle repeats. Although it is rather boring, and the shortened first day classes usually don't accomplish much, it is nice to see all your friends again. Besides, without school you can't truly appreciate the free time you had over the summer.
Yesterday we did lab check in for our Organic Chemistry lab drawers, and our first lab, Index of Refraction. The lab was interesting. The two types of Refractometers we had only required us to line up a bar under the scope and then push a button to read off the index of refraction. The machines read to 4 points past the decimal and are precise, in comparison to the CRC values for our chemicals our values didn't deviate by more than 4.000%.
Yet another distraction has come to take me away from my work here, Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy is now out. Being a Clancy fan I had to get it and am now working my way through the 740 page behemoth (I wish I could read my Organic Chemistry book with this much enthusiasm).
Just a note, the counter on this page doesn't seem to be working properly, I will replace it as soon as I can.
8/24/98 A Organic Chemistry section has been added to the page. It can be found by clicking the link above or on the left side after scrolling down.
The first day of organic chemistry was fun. We all sat in the dark until the professor came. When he asked why we didn't turn on the lights, one of my classmates replied, "So that we would be just as in the dark when we came as when we leave." :-)
The textbook is huge! (4.50 cm to proper significant digits). The professor said this was because it not only contained the most information, but for past classes it was also good exercise carrying it around campus. :-)
Enough about how hard organic will be. Right now we haven't covered much, (its only the first day) but i expect to be adding much more as the year progresses. Also this doesn't mean I will be discontinuing the AP Chemistry portion, it just means that there will be other organic chemistry updates as well.
If anyone doesn't like the animations above, let me know (eepp@altavista.net), I can move them to other parts of the site to decrease loading time for the main page.
So long for now, I probably won't update again until this weekend, unless I finish Chapter 7: Electronic Structure of Atoms by working late.
All this back to school stuff is rather glum, so for some chemistry and other science humor head over to the Science Jokes Archive at http://www.princeton.edu/~pemayer/ScienceJokes.html for a lighter look at the sciences.
8/23/98 Just for reference, even though it isn't noticeable, the bond angle I used for the methane molecule above was 109.4o. The actual value for the bond angle is 109o28' (109.46666666o). So therefore my animation has a percent error of .0609 %. No, I am not going to remake it with the correct value. If you would like to find out more about the software used to make the 3D model go to http://www.Rhino3d.com.
On a similar note I created several images with Rhino3d of various cehmical compounds and have started a Chemistry Images section.
The new animation is a Bohr model representation of hydrogen. (Items not drawn to scale.)
Tomorrow school begins again. I expect to busy this first week, so this page will probably not be updated.
8/20/98 New Section! Chapter 7: Electronic Structure of Atoms is now UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
This site will be expanding its scope. I will be taking an Organic Chemistry class and will add sections for it as well.
8/19/98 Section Complete! Basic Knowledge to Build the Quantum Theory is complete!.
I'm not sure what the next section will be, however it will probably be in the same area as Basic Knowledge to Build the Quantum Theory.
School is beginning soon and the frequency of updates will probably drop somewhat until I can get all my activites balanced. From now on the page will probably be updated about twice a week.
I've decided not to have a question and answer section unless the number of questions exceeds a reasonable amount of room here on the main page. As always, if you have any questions you can sent them to me at eepp@altavista.net.
8/13/98 Notice! I will probably not update this page for another week because of back to school preparations.

Section Complete! Thermochemistry is complete.

New Section! Chemistry Links has been added. Anyone with suggestions for more links can send them to me at eepp@altavista.net.

New Section! Basic Knowledge to Build the Quantum Theory is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
8/12/98Although the questions probably won't start until the school year begins anyone who has a question can email me at eepp@altavista.net. I will try to answer all the questions I can and post the answers here, or on a Question and Answer section I am working on.

Section Complete! Pressure Notes has been input.

New Section! Thermochemistry is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
8/11/98Minor aesthetic changes made.
8/10/98News archive added to reduce the size of the opening page. Minor navigation links added to make this site easier to navigate.

The animated beakers have been removed, although the novelty is nice, they can get on your nerves.

Section Complete! Chapter 6: Kinetic Theory of Gases is complete!
8/8/98Slight Change in page design. Cascading style sheets have been added. If your browser doesn't support them, the page should still load properly, but not have all of the eye-candy. Make sure your browser is setup to view animations in order to see the beaker animation above by the title.
8/6/98New Section! Chapter 6: Kinetic Theory of Gases is still UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
June 1998 August 1998 September 1998

Any comments will be appreciated. Please e-mail me at eepp@altavista.net
URL: https://members.tripod.com/~EppE/august98.htm

This page was made by Erik Epp.