Dolphin

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siirzm

Hmm, I could argue that even chemists don't understand chemistry.. AFAIK, chemistry has very little to say about situations chemists haven't actually seen before and reported, so we(speaking for humanity--I'm not a chemist) really don't understand it. Of course, any chemical event is inherently a very many-body problem, so I'd imagine it would be difficult to truly understand. This keeps chemists in jobs, at least!

Monkeybot

I always found chemistry much harder than physics. Before I go any further, let me state that I am basing this off of my high school experience, and that I left this stuff behind when I hit college.

I think the reason for this was that I found chemistry experiments difficult and impractical. Maybe it was just the particular teacher I had, but I never really "got" what the point of mixing substance A with substance B was. We already knew it would go pop pop, fizz fizz, so why bother? I think I also had a hard time relating the experiments to the stuff we learned in class; they just didn't seem to jibe.

Meanwhile, in physics, we didn't really do experiments, or the ones we did were clear demonstrations of a PRINCIPLE. Plus, it was exciting to think about the implications, and to get down to sub-electron levels, and to think about, you know, outer space and stuff. It was just more interesting.

I'm not saying that one branch of science is better or whatever. Frankly I'm jealous of people who seem to have "chemistry brains," because I just don't. I should also add that these were just two high school classes, and if I'd had different teachers my opinion could well be reversed.

By the way, a friend of mine took the Honors Chemistry course in H.S., which was taught by a bipolar, unmedicated nun. And yes, this teacher, affectionately nicknamed "Sister Satan," was as bad as that description implies. Needless to say, my friend now majoring in political science. It's sad, though, because she had great "chemistry brain," but that particular teacher was so horrendous as to turn her off from science -- possibly forever.

HRGruemm

Trying to solve a partial differential equation (Schrödinger's) in 3N dimensions, with N not too small, must be difficult, whether it is done theoretically or experimentally .....

HRG :-)

emotional

I used to like chemistry in my high school years. At first it was so exciting, I learnt it with a passion. Later it became more and more complicated, so I gave up.

Boro Nut

-273°K

Pantera

There's no such temperature.

Boro Nut

I knew someone would bite. I never thought it would be you.

Mad Kally

Pantera,
I took general chemistry and organic chemistry in college. I actually understood sometimes. What really blew my mind was the extra credit I got for doing multiple reaction stoichiometry. Only two of us in the class tried it. The first one I set up took up an entire sheet of paper. He gave us the answers but we had to set the whole thing up. I was at home and when I set one up properly I jumped out of my chair and yelled at the top of my lungs (I was so excited)

Dr. Bookin could be mean though. Some other students talked me into asking him a question one time. I tried to memorize what I wanted to say, but I forgot by the time I got to the front of the class. (confusion set in) He yelled at me and said, "don't bother me if you don't even know what you want to ask!" Oh the humiliation!

One time I made an isomer that was so confusing the professor just put a question mark by it and gave me credit. Who knows what it was? lol

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Mad Kally ]</p>

Tinman

Hard to understand?

Our first exposure to chemistry unfortunately is usually the boring high school chemistry class where atomic book-keeping and mind numbing electronic configurations are emphasized.

If we survive this we are blitzed by the seemingly unrelated myriad of reactions of organic chemistry.

Then comes biochemistry which hits you again with a whole new (again apparently unrelated) set of reactions to memorize, not counting all those intricate (Behe fans take note) pathways.

After this is physical chemistry where you realize after taking the course for the third time that evolution really can't violate the second law of thermodyamics (you really could have picked that up in your first chemistry course but you were too busy figuring out why the the heck those transition metals had to be so irregular in their shells!).

Then comes quantum chemistry where, to your dismay, you find out that physics can only solve the equations for the structure of an atom with only one proton and one electron-Hydrogen-that's it folks! So much for the king of sciences. With a generous helping from the chemists keen observations, the physcist is given some fudge factors and walla, almost anything can now be predicted de-novo.

Despite those trials chemistry is still the most experimentally satisfying of the sciences. No other discipline can propose a theory on Monday, set up the experiment on Tuesday and support or kill the hypothesis on Wednesday. And all for the cheap, cheap price of one chemist and a modest collection of round bottom flasks, a little ether and a few wierd smelling chemicals from Aldrich.

Have I convinced anyone that it's all worth it?
Are you looking for a job yet Pantera?

Tinman

[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Tinman ]</p>