Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

get21stnight.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 143 posts

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#21

Post by Mountain_Skies »

black6 wrote: post #14

> Students are given incredibly precise instructions and told to find a certain result. If they fail to find the result, they are made to redo the “experiment”. In my final Chemical Engineering Unit Operations lab course there was a distillation column with the associated instrumentation suffering from neglect and abuse, as indicated by the saw-tooth molar ratio across the height instead of the smooth curve one would…

My introduction to chemistry professor lied to us about a compound we were testing in order to see who would lie about their results and who would be honest even though they thought they were going to be graded poorly. Pretty sure both the alleged compound and actual compound were mostly harmless so there was little danger in his deception and the lesson was learned by the class to not falsify experiment data.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#22

Post by bitwize »

dreen wrote: post #13

I was bored of chemistry until I started cheating on tests. Somehow creating my own system to represent all those reactions so I can cram all of them in 3pt font on a 3x1cm piece of paper has gotten me sufficiently interested that at some point I realised I've learnt it.

This is why many collegiate level exams now permit you to cram as many equations, rules, etc. as will fit on a single piece of paper (one side) and use it during the exam.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#23

Post by funklute »

zabzonk wrote: post #11
funklute wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, understanding molecular bonding is much easier in organic chemistry. Inorganic chemistry mostly requires molecule-by-molecule computational solutions, whereas organic can get you quite far purely with rules of thumb. I majored in chemistry, and it was widely accepted that inorganic chemistry was "harder" because of the above.

My experience is exactly the opposite. Inorganic chemistry is mostly governed by the valencies of the elements reacting (and thermodynamics, of course) which are easily learned. Whereas organic chemistry is enormously complicated by the sizes and shapes of the molecules.

But as it turns out, you can (mostly) rely on some very simple rules of thumb to describe all those different sizes and shapes. There are only so many functional groups from which the organic zoo is built, and the most common ones (e.g. a benzene ring) are very well understood by now. On top of that, organic chemistry usually involves the low energy shells, for which sp-hybridization schemes work pretty well in describing the bonding.

In contrast, inorganic chemistry regularly involves higher-energy shells, that have much more complicated geometries and energy levels. Relativistic effects also come into play, and the end result is that you often can't even make a guess at what the molecular orbitals look like. And if you don't know what the molecular orbitals look like, you also don't know how the molecule will react with other molecules, since you don't know what the charge distribution is.

EDIT: the general attitude in my uni, also among the professors, was that the inorganic folks had a much harder time theoretically than the organic folks. As in, the inorganic might make a fancy new compound, yet have no idea how the molecule "worked". On the other hand, the organic folks had a much harder time experimentally - they would usually only have a few mg of product, whereas in inorganic chemistry you can often end up with as much as you like.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#24

Post by Reedx »

jlarocco wrote: post #17

No offense to the author, but it might be poor teachers. My high school chemistry teacher was one of the best I've ever had. She made it very fun, and had a stream of kids taking her classes and ultimately getting 4s and 5s on the AP chemistry test. It was so much fun I spent a semester as her lab assistant.

Really, a great teacher can make anything interesting and fun.

Which is powerful and valuable. Indeed I think this next decade we'll see many great teachers become very well known and wealthy as a result of the reach and impact they'll be able to achieve online.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#25

Post by pbhjpbhj »

black6 wrote: post #14

> Students are given incredibly precise instructions and told to find a certain result. If they fail to find the result, they are made to redo the “experiment”. In my final Chemical Engineering Unit Operations lab course there was a distillation column with the associated instrumentation suffering from neglect and abuse, as indicated by the saw-tooth molar ratio across the height instead of the smooth curve one would…

I refused to "do a Hubble" and recorded the results I got and got marked down for poor experimental accuracy.

Aside, I hate the practice of calling demonstrations "experiments".

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#26

Post by madengr »

StillBored wrote: post #18

You can replace chemistry with math in his article (and he sort of mentions this in context near the end). I can't remember once being shown the physical problems that drove progress in math until I reached calculus. I remember being bored to tears in algebra 2, a class which was basically being taught as linear algebra + trigonometry. It wasn't until the following summer that I discovered 3d transforms, and a bunch…

What I hated was having to memorize orbitals in freshman chemistry, then after taking modern physics as a junior, the orbitals were deduced easily.

Anyway, I hated chemistry, as it seemed all rote memorization. Physics was so much better. It’s also more applicable to RF.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#28

Post by csense »

I wonder if it's related to liability.

If you give teenagers a bunch of chemicals and tell them to learn by experiment, they'll probably end up doing bad stuff (drugs / poisons / explosions), either by accident or on purpose.

In 1850, society was a lot more accepting of this kind of thing than it is now.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#29

Post by black6 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #25
black6 wrote: post #14

> Students are given incredibly precise instructions and told to find a certain result. If they fail to find the result, they are made to redo the “experiment”. In my final Chemical Engineering Unit Operations lab course there was a distillation column with the associated instrumentation suffering from neglect and abuse, as indicated by the saw-tooth molar ratio across the height instead of the smooth curve one would…

I refused to "do a Hubble" and recorded the results I got and got marked down for poor experimental accuracy. Aside, I hate the practice of calling demonstrations "experiments".

> Aside, I hate the practice of calling demonstrations "experiments".

Me too! Demonstration was the word I was looking for, but it wouldn't come to me, so I just used experiment, instead.

Re: Why introductory chemistry is boring: a long-term historical perspective

#30

Post by papreclip »

Why does chemistry have to be less boring? We are not short on chemists. Take it from someone who left the field

Exploding balloons, frozen roses, elephant toothpaste are all very unlike what a chemist will do for a living after they've been lured into the field with this magician's act. Personally I don't think it's a bad thing if the classes are a little dry.

It's true chem lab is a bit too much like following cooking instructions, but as a former TA I assure you the train would come off the rails for 2/3 the class if you tried to get students to do much more in the little time they have. I had colleagues who went to undergrad in India where they still have "identify this substance" exams. They related identifying solvents and powders by smell, look, and feel. It's hardly learning the scientific method

Post reply on HN