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:
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.)
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]
I figured it was time I weighed in on a basic concept from chemistry, so let’s talk about what defines an element.
In my basic concepts post on theory testing, I set out what I take to be a fairly standard understanding of “theory” in philosophy of science discussions:
I’m a little cautious about adding this to the basic concepts list, given that my main point here is going to be that things are not as simple as you might guess. You’ve been warned.
We’ve already taken a look at what it means for a claim to be falsifiable. Often (but not always), when scientists talk about testability, they have something like falsifiability in mind. But testing a theory against the world turns out to be more complicated than testing a single, isolated hypothesis.
Here’s another basic concept for the list: what does it mean for a claim to be falsifiable, and why does falsifiability matter so much to scientists and philosophers of science?
As my first contribution to the growing list of basic terms and concepts, I’m going to explain a few things no one asked about when I opened the request line. But, these are ideas that are crucial building blocks for things people actually did ask about, like falsifiability and critical thinking, so there will be a payoff here.
Philosophers talk a lot about arguments. What do they mean?