Chemistry fans get excited as second round games in MORTAR AND PESTLE bracket draw near.

Posted on March 19, 2007January 29, 2015 by admin

Even given a weekend to come back to equilibrium, some chemistry fans are still perturbed by some of the results of first round play in the MORTAR AND PESTLE bracket. FTIR’s upset win over NMR has many a Monday morning spectroscopist splitting his peaks trying to analyze what went wrong. And while Ethanol is a perennial powerhouse in this conference, many tournament watchers had anticipated celebrating Caffeine at their Monday morning lab meetings.

Friday’s games were just the first step in a mutli-step synthesis of a tournament champion. Tomorrow, just four teams will emerge from the crucible of second round play in the Chemical Arena. The match-ups will be:

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Chemistry Conference first round results!

Posted on March 16, 2007March 16, 2007 by admin

PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS
The March weather in California has taken a turn for the beautiful this afternoon, but to chemistry conference fans, the natural beauty of the great outdoors is no match for the beauty of the competitions inside the Chemical Arena. The crowds donned their safety goggles and souvenir nitrile gloves and piled in to observe the action. The press box was a flurry of strip-charts and lab notebooks. After some excited play, here are the first round results:

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Friday Sprog Blogging: be a sport.

Posted on March 16, 2007January 29, 2015 by admin

Neither of the Free-Ride offspring considers leprechaun trapping a sport. That doesn’t mean, however, that they won’t try to catch a leprechaun.
In view of all the springtime sports excitement (here, here, here, here, and here), the sprogs take this opportunity to consider how their athletic endeavors are actually scientific explorations.

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Chemistry is game on! (MORTAR AND PESTLE bracket opens)

Posted on March 14, 2007January 29, 2015 by admin

PRESS CENTER | PRINTABLE BRACKETS

It’s time for a quick run down of the teams from the Chemistry Conference who made it to the tournament this Spring — some who we fully expected to see here, and a few surprises. But it’s also time for you, the fans, to make some noise in support of your favorite teams! If we follow your observations on these competitors down to the quantum level, they’re bound to effect the outcome (albeit in a probabilistic way).

Here are the first round match ups:

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Tuesday evening check-in.

Posted on March 13, 2007March 13, 2007 by admin

There will be a real post again within a day or so. I’ve been doing stuff in the three-dimensional world. So you don’t feel left out:

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In case you have time on your hands …

Posted on March 12, 2007March 12, 2007 by admin

… especially if you’ve just lost an hour to an unseasonably early Daylight Savings (can I blame the groundhog for this?), here are some attractive time sinks:

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Name my personality in 10 songs or less.

Posted on March 12, 2007March 12, 2007 by admin

Chris at Mixing Memory points to research that suggests musical preferences provide a window to the personality. I haven’t seen the research yet but, at Chris’s prompting, I’ll throw myself into the ring as an experimental subject by listing 10 songs I like an awful lot*:

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Basic concepts: intermolecular forces.

Posted on March 10, 2007January 29, 2015 by admin

As promised at the end of my post on polar and non-polar molecules, here’s a basic concepts post on intermolecular forces. Intermolecular forces are the forces between molecules, whereas intramolecular forces are those within molecules. (The bonds that hold the atoms in a molecule together are intramolecular forces.)

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14 lines of iambic pentameter for 50 years.

Posted on March 9, 2007March 9, 2007 by admin

There’s a rumor* that, when he’s in his cups, PZ Myers sounds like an overeducated — some might say Shakespearian — pirate.
Therefore, in honor of his birthday, I offer this sonnet:

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Basic concepts: polar and non-polar molecules.

Posted on March 9, 2007January 29, 2015 by admin

What list of basic concepts would be complete without a primer on polar and non-polar molecules?
You’ll recall that chemists live in a world made up of atoms and various assemblies and modifications thereof, which are, in turn, made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons (which have positive charge and some mass) and neutrons (which are just a squosh more massive than protons) hang out together in the nucleus of your atom, while electrons can be thought of as zipping around the nucleus.
When multiple atoms are part of an assembly in which they are bonded to each other, you have a molecule. For the moment, consider the “bond” between atoms in a molecule to be an electron-sharing arrangement that maintains a certain (average) spatial configuration between the nuclei of the bonded atoms. [1]

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