November 3, 2011: CH301 Random Musings—Every Problem for the Rest of the Course 1. Exam 2 results—still waiting on a final decision for exam 2 make-up. Sadly, I got sick yesterday and didn’t have time to do a thorough examination of the questions. So give me till Tuesday to decide if there are questions that were unfair. I do know that the regular exam had an average of 83. As for the make-up, it currently sits in the high 60s, which is unfortunate. I need to find out whether this is a statistically valid result. I do know that at least two questions will be killed because they have ambiguous (multiple) correct answers. So please be patient, I apologize for the delay. 2. Southpark does thermodynamics. You don’t produce two college age males without watching a lot of Southpark. So you can imagine my dismay, when about a decade years ago, mid-November, 2002, while watching epidsode 612, The Death Camp of Tolerance, I was deeply saddened to hear the following, utterly shocking statement from Mr. Garrison: [South Park Elementary, day, Garrison's class. Mr. Garrison enters, having previously set up a chemistry experiment on the teacher's desk.] Mr. Garrison: Okay, children, let's take our seats. Uh, apparently, none of you tried to get me fired yesterday, so I guess we're just gonna have to go on and learn more today. [sits on a corner of the desk] Now who can tells me what happens to water when we heat it up in the Bunsen burner? Butters: It evaporates. Mr. Garrison: Good, Butters. Now if we take the glass tube of the Bunsen burner, we can also see how other things react. [takes the tube in hand and walks over to Mr. Slave] Evaporation is an exothermic reaction, so let's look at an endothermic one….. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! You see, the problem is Mr. Garrison wasn’t “being the system”. If you will “be the system” you realize that water evaporating is an endothermic process, because you are adding heat to the system (ΔH is positive.) He should have said Evaporation is an endothermic physical process Anyway, you know it is hard enough trying to get students to “be the system” without having it contradicted by cable television. So very, very sad. 3. Signing up for my class—if you wanted in, then with a few exceptions, you are being added, by hand. Now be aware that when you are dealing with 100s of pieces of paper, mistakes happen. So don’t get upset, just e-mail and let me know if you weren’t added. By the way, the reason might be that you signed up for another 302 course, that you signed up for a course in my time slot, or that you signed up for more than the maximum hours. Those issues are not my problem. Fix them, and I will be able to add you. Be aware that for whatever reasons a lot of people would like to take my class, and that I have a massive wait list to add. If you don’t want to stay but then later ask to get back in, or get dropped because your parents don’t pay your fee bill, or don’t pass the course, then chances of being added back in are small. So be respectful of the narrow window of opportunity for getting in. I can’t add folks passed the capacity of the room. 4. Schedule for the rest of the course. Is the semester really almost over? 20 H 11/3 Statistical Thermodynamics 21 T 11/8 Internal Energy22 H 11/10 Internal Energy Quiz 5 23 T 11/15 Entropy 24 H 11/17 Entropy 24 T 11/22 Free Energy and pie and ice cream Quiz 6 25 T 11/30 Free Energy W 11/31 Exam 3 Lectures 18-25 5. Quiz 5 is next Thursday with the question types presented below: • Bomb calorimeter calculation • Hess’ Law and calculating enthalpy changes • Bond energy calculation • Work calculation • Sign convention • Predicting entropy change • Temperature dependence of reaction spontaneity • Theory (laws, state functions, etc.) 6. A Worksheet 10 and 11 are posted to help you prepare for the quiz. A practice quiz 5 will be posted this weekend as well. 7. Question Types. What better way to spend the Thanksgiving holidays than studying, and what better way to study than to sink those question types for the class into your brain before you begin to study. So here you go, Quiz 6, Exam 3 and Final Exam question types for the rest of the semester, reproduced at the bottom of the musings. 8. My discussion sessions next week will be in the classrooms because of the quiz. 9. Extra Credit Opportunities. As promised, here is an opportunity to add 1% to your total course grade. Extra Credit 1. The Instructions. • 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 heading of the e-mail: EC1f11—your uteid and send it to [email protected]. • If you do not provide the correct subject heading and your UTEID, you will not receive credit. • Due Date: December 2 at 5 p.m.11. Poetry corner. Here are poems from two of the very greats, Keats, who died tragically of tuberculosis at age 25, three years after writing “when I have fears that I may cease to be”, and Yeats, who lived a zillion years but spent his entire life chasing Maud Gonne, a glimmering red-head who spent much of her life leading him on, evidently to fuel him with enough angst to write about a hundred poems about how sad he was he could never have her. When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the
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