It turns out I’ve been a member of the Americal Chemical Society for three years now. How do I know?
They sent me a new mug.
Category Archives: Chemistry
Mendeleev rips off French geologist?
The New York Times has taken notice of the history and philosophy of chemistry in a small piece about a new book, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Significance by Eric R. Scerri. In particular, the Times piece notes the issue of whether Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was “borrowing” from the work of others (without acknowledging that he had done so) when he put forward his version of the periodic table of the elements:
How chemistry makes me feel. (One from the vault for National Chemistry Week.)
We’re just past the midpoint of National Chemistry Week, so I thought I’d share a “classic” post (from last year’s National Chemistry Week) about how studying chemistry can nourish one’s human yearnings.
Happy National Chemistry Week!
Hey, it’s National Chemistry Week (and it has been since yesterday). Also, from 6:02 AM until 6:02 PM today, it was Mole Day.
I had hoped to have lots of time to wallow in the festivities, crack Mole Day jokes, and so on, but as it turns out I have 6.02 x 10^23 things on my to-do list today, so y’all will have to celebrate without me.
“Science” kits that teach stereotypes.
It’s the time of year when the mailbox starts filling up with catalogues. At the Free-Ride house, many of these are catalogues featuring “educational” toys and games. Now, some of these toys and games are actually pretty cool. Others, to my mind, are worse than mere wastes of money.
For your consideration, three “science” kits targeted at girls:
So much to blog about, so little time!
Things have been busy here, but there are some interesting stories I’ve been watching that I thought I should mention (as well as the usual fodder for rants, and a cartoon series that might be funny, if it’s not just seriously twisted):
Gabba gabba! One of us! One of us!
Following up on my earlier post on Roger D. Kornberg’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry, I want to call your attention to this comment from the esteemed Pinko Punko:
Well, in the press conf. Dr. Kornberg stated he absolutely and first and formost views himself as a chemist, and his training (Ph.D.) was under a world famous chemist. He considers himself a physical scientist whose goal is to understand the mechanism at the molecular level of a protein machine. Now, perhaps this is somewhat simple chemistry as many of the steps boil down to hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. You will also note in the history of the Chemistry prize, many nucleic acid-transaction relating research programs have been awarded in addition to post-translation modification of proteins, essentially what many would consider biochemistry. He was on many people’s shortlist for the Chemistry prize, perhaps just not those [who] consider themselves primarily chemists. Dr. Korberg referred to Chemistry as the “Queen of the Sciences” and the fundamental basis for molecular understanding.
(Bold emphasis added.)
So, since he:
- Trained as a chemist,
- Uses chemical methods to study the systems he studies, and
- Acknowledges chemistry as the Queen of the Sciences,
I, for one, am satisfied that Kornberg is a chemist.
(He didn’t need the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on top of those three to convince me, but it’s not like I’m going to make him feel awkward for having one.)
Quick notes on the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
As Bora noted, this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Roger D. Kornberg for a piece of research (the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription) that strikes lots of folks as being within the bounds of biology rather than chemistry.
I can’t do an elaborate discourse on this (as I have sprog-related errands I must do this afternoon), but I want to get some initial responses to this on the table:
A hail of random bullets until I find time for a real post.
I actually have a longish post I’m working on (about whistleblowing), plus a bazillion submissions for the upcoming Skeptics’ Circle to sort through, but between teaching and grading and coaching and making lunches, well, there are a bunch of important tidbits that will fall through the cracks unless I give you a random bullets post:
Disciplinary misconceptions (chemistry version).
Walking outside with a well-known local blogger:
WKLB: I never did take a chemistry course.
Me: Why not?
WKLB: I’m not good at memorizing stuff, and there’s that whole big periodic table …
Me: Hey, my memorization skills are pretty worthless, too. But in chemistry, you don’t need them as much as you do in a field like biology.
WKLB: Really? You don’t ever have to, like, write out the periodic table from memory?
Me: Hell no! The idea is to learn how to turn the periodic table into a device for predicting stuff about the different elements — like a secret decoder ring. They always give you a periodic table. There’s usually a big one hanging right there in the classroom.
WKLB: Oh.
Me: Seriously, my memory can only be trusted with Simpsons dialog and song lyrics.
WKLB: Hmm. I guess, then, that I could have learned chemistry.
Me: You totally could. In fact, there’s still time!