CH 301 Random Musings, November 15, 2011 1. Quiz 5 results were actually better than expected—the average was a 75%. This is historically the quiz with the lowest average, for lots of reasons. So compared to past classes this is pretty good. 2. The death of questions: Quiz 5—we killed the question on calorimetry and gave everyone credit. It was programmed wrong so that the correct answer in the solutions (a negative value) was not what was identified as correct in the answer key (a positive value.) Sorry for the confusion. Exam 2 (the regular one): I am killing the surface tension question. It turns out I neglected to update my notes to teach about water beading up on window surfaces and also did not mention it in class. Basically you weren’t exposed to the necessary fact to answer this question correctly so I am killing it and giving everyone credit. Exam 2 make-up: I am killing the following questions: • the hydrogen bonding ranking question because the notes contain a reference to the fact that H-Cl has hydrogen bonding capability. I actually taught it with only N, O and F having hydrogen bonding, which is closer to correct, but my notes were misleading. • the question on viscosity ranking where methanol and water are compared. You should certainly know that methanol, which from experience has a much high vapor pressure than water, would have a lower viscosity. But there was a problem on the practice exam with ethanol argued as more viscous than water, so the confusion in answering this question would be understandable. • the question on hybridization theory—almost everyone missed it and I can understand why, the statement about what happens to the extra orbitals when d2sp3 hybrids are formed was poorly written, I don’t even know what they were getting at. Matt will make these adjustments over the next week or so. Patience. 2. If you think that Southpark doesn’t understand Thermo, what about the folks that run A&M’s football program. As an avid lurker on football message boards, I came across this fascinating story on Aggie football and heat capacities two years ago. I will let the article speak for itself. COLLEGE STATION, Texas—A Bunsen burner has turned into a handy motivational prop for Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman. A few weeks ago, Sherman talked about using one of the open-flamed contraptions to illustrate that hot water boils with only a small increase in temperature, drawing the parallel with players' levels of effort. He pulled out the burner again at another recent team meeting and heated up a marshmallow, a jelly bean and a steel ball, comparing how each object reacted to the heat with how players handle pressure. The marshmallow melted immediately, the jelly bean withstood the heat for a few moments before burning up and the steel ball absorbed the heat and lost its impurities in the process. "You talk about three different types of people: marshmallows, jelly beans and rocks," Sherman said Thursday. "What are you? You take a marshmallow, the heat gets turned up, adversity's in your face and the pressure's really high. Are you a marshmallow? You put the marshmallow over the Bunsen burner and it ignites almost simultaneously. Who's a marshmallow? "If a kid doesn't have a great practice, or doesn't demonstrate the integrity of practice," Sherman said, "maybe he even finds a marshmallow in his locker." Sherman said he tries to come up with creative ways to make points to his team to break up the monotony of the long season.3. There is a final quiz next Tuesday with the question types listed below. Quiz 6 question types. 1. Statistical Thermodynamics theory 2. Statistical Thermodynamics—internal energy calculation 3. Statistical Thermodynamics—positional entropy calculation 4. Internal Energy Calculation 5. Calculation of ΔS from heat transfer 6. Calculation of phase transition temperature using the Gibbs equation at equilibrium 7. Calculating ΔGro o from table values of ΔHfo o and Sfo 8. Calculation involving the second law equation 4. As usual in preparation for a quiz, the following will be provided to you: • We should have all the lecture learning modules, and worksheets with answer keys and video clips up by this weekend. • A practice quiz 6 will be posted by Saturday 5. Some unusual things happening because of Thanksgiving. • You will eat pie and ice cream in class on Tuesday, just because. Then you will take a quiz and then wonder why there isn’t a lecture (the answer is that I have basically presented all of the new material as of the end of class today.) • You won’t go to class on Thursday. • There will be a review for the third exam, the final week of class, but it will occur on Monday night from 8 till 9 pm in this room because many of you will not be back from celebrating Thanksgiving. 6. Extra Credit Opportunities. I am providing three extra credit opportunities this semester. The first was the botched table of elements and everyone will get 1 % for that, no questions asked. The second was already presented—the science hater extra credit. The third is on completing an on-line assessment survey. Each extra credit is worth exactly 1% of your course grade, regardless of the grading scheme. With these three extra credits I have effectively lowered the cutoffs by 3% at every grade level—more on the scoring of this next Tuesday. Extra Credit 1—Converting a science hater • I want you to teach a science-hater something interesting about chemistry that you have learned in this class. 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 I would recommend that it be something of interest and utility, like the complications of cooking at high altitude if you happen to be skiing at Thanksgiving, or why South Park was wrong about evaporation or why Jesus would have a harder time walking on liquid nitrogen than water or how ozone is polar even though it has no electronegativity difference between the O atoms. Choose anything from the course and have a fine conversation. • Submit the assignment as simple text in an e-mail (no attachments) • Use the specific text written below as the subject
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