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UT CH 302 - CH 302 Random Musings
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Spring 2009 CH 302 Random Musings—March 23, 2010—A huge one to get started back up 1. Welcome back from Spring Break. One of the things that will amaze those of you new to college is how rapidly the last half of the spring semester disappears leading to final exams. For many of you it will be the most challenging academic experience of your life if you are in a bunch of science courses. I still vividly recall my own experience that first spring semester trying to do well in chemistry, calculus, biology, chemistry lab and biology lab plus two liberal arts courses. I don’t think I slept the week I had five finals in three days. So just strap on a seat belt and enjoy the ride. It will make what comes later in college seem like a walk in the park. 2. Starting five years ago I decided that my second round of children would not grow up thinking that spring break was when your dad stayed home and caught up on his e-mail. So beginning with New Orleans, and then the Smokey Mountains, and then New York, and then a beach in Destin, Florida, my spring breaks involved carting a very large family around in a minivan somewhere far from home. This year it was back to New York and I have no pictures to share. Why? It was the worst spring break of my life— The worst sinus infection of my life and my one year old catching the flu? Or maybe the two days in a dingy Arlington hotel waiting for a plane after a canceled flight? Or five days without luggage? Or midnights spent in dingy Laundromats washing the clothes off our backs because of the lost luggage? Or 2.5 hours in the Lincoln Tunnel when I should have been at my son’s Juilliard concert? But I am a contented man. And here is why. Dr. Laude’s deep thought on the fundamental difference between old people and young people: Very simply, old people have had more chances at stuff--more relationships, more jobs, more vacations--and we get to build this collection of chances into real populations with real distributions—it makes for perspective. Like, “she was in the top half of all the girl friends I have had.” So while youngsters like you have had maybe a couple spring breaks at most, not enough to know all the variations, I have had 30 spring breaks and know the truth. The truth is that when you have done the same thing enough, like spring breaks, you know that half of them have to be the worst half, and half have to be the best half. And the great spring break I had in Destin last year wouldn’t be as great if I didn’t have the awful spring break I had this year. Dr. Laude’s Spring Breaks fit a Guassian distribution The worst spring breaks over here The best spring breaks over here And even better, that awful spring break trip I just had made a meal of an average meal of hotdogs and cantaloupe, after I got the family home safe last Friday night, just about the best meal I have eaten in a very long time—at least in the top half of all the meals I have ever eaten. 3. And how do I know CNS students are not the coolest? Because I read your extra credits, and for the most part, 90% of you simply hung out with your families over break. I have enjoyed many of your responses, here is one I found especially amusing: You see when I went to school I bought my girlfriend a beta fish. She loved it and named it Squirt. It has been a long time overdue but the fish finally died this spring break. As I drove to see her at her college she called me, her voice sad and forlorn. Squirt was dead, and this was my chance. I told her to wait to flush him, because this was the opportunity of a lifetime. When I arrived I surveyed the lifeless body of her fish, both eyes were protruding and red looking upside-down from a glass of crystal clear water. I asked if she had changed the water of the tank recently. She had the night before, and Squirt paid the ultimate price for it. I sat her down and looked deep into her eyes, "Baby, the reason your fish died was because of the osmotic pressure difference between Squirts body and the water surrounding him. When you changed his water it rushed inside him and essentially blew his tiny fins to that big toilet bowl in the sky." With large sad eyes she asked, "Why would say something like that now?" I sighed knowing I would pay full price for the next words, "Because if I get you to say that you had no idea chemistry was interesting I get 3 extra credit points on my final exam….." Then we went and bought her another fish. 4. So here it is, a final reminder of the EC instructions for the 276 of you who haven’t yet turned it in. Note the looming deadline. Extra Credit 1. To earn 1% of your course grade that you can add to your point totals for the semester, complete the assignment below and follow the specific instructions given. This EC can be used to calculate exemptions. Depending on your method of grading, 1% will be worth 7 points for exemption, 10 points for overall course grade or 3 points if the final counts for everything. Procedure: • Complete the assignment below. • Write it up (probably 100 words or so, but write as much as you want to tell the story. • Submit it to my e-mail address: [email protected] • IMPORTANT. You must title the extra credit: EC1s10 Spring Break • (If you do not use this EXACT subject you will not be filtered into the file from which I assign extra credit.) • Due Date: Tuesday, March 30 at 11:59 pm.. I am going to be strict about the deadline this semester. Extra Credit Assignment: During spring break I want you to teach a science-hater something interesting about chemistry that you learned in this class. To get the points, the person you teach has to say to you, “gee, I had no idea chemistry was that interesting” when you have finished (you can make them say it even if they don’t mean it.). You can choose what you teach but it should be something of interest and utility that you have learned from your experiences with chemical and physical equilibria.5. As I indicated in an e-mail over the weekend, being realistic about what we can hope to accomplish, I am changing the content for exam 2, and limiting it to only water chemistry. Consequently Quiz 4 on Thursday will cover the following question types. • ranking solubtility from Ksp • common ion solubility calculation • identifying a buffer after neutralization • titration of weak A


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