I owe my start in science thanks to amateur chemistry (it was my hobby in middle and high school). I almost blew myself up once, and also burned my hand with bromine. And my clothes got quite a few holes from acids (mainly H2SO4 that came from Ace Hardware as drain cleaner). But I learned so much! I'm glad my parents didn't stop me.
A requiem for amateur chemistry
11–20 of 156 posts
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#12> It is equally difficult to source ideas for the curriculum. Many classic amateur chemistry books are out of print, and there is little incentive to publish more.
So then! My place of work, the Science History Institute, has a number of old amateur chemistry experiment books digitized online and freely accessible. My job includes developing and managing the web site/app we use to manage our digitized content and present it to you!
Let's see if I wind up giving our site the kiss of death, which will be embarrassing for me, it's usually pretty solid, but, it doesn't usually get much traffic and doesn't yet have a lot of defenses against it, this is a small non-profit operation. :( But I can't resist sharing this very relevant content!
Most of these are booklets which accompanied particular chemistry sets. (Also should probably say conduct at your own risk?).
Note there are PDF download options available under the "download" menu.
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/tvu6pby
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/upl4n7s
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/e7ft0h9
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/bmt5ls5
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/4kvkrsz
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/so1jbnu
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/cqmqcyh
Oh hey, here's a bonus one about electrical rather than chemistry experiments, from 1891!
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/ssax7fn
We also have some of the actual chemistry sets in our museum, and pictures of some of them online, for those interested:
https://digital.sciencehistory.org/catalog?f%5Bformat_facet%...
And finally, here's a Google Arts & Culture online museum exhibition we made about Chemistry Sets. (This was one of the first online Google A&C things our curators made, which possibly shows...) https://artsandculture.google.com/story/nAXRsuiYboFtKA
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#13The author mentions cyanotypes and salt printing. Photography is what got me interested in chemistry as a kid. Understanding how film, paper, light, and chemicals all interacted was a lot of fun. Even figuring out how to make your prints last (proper clearing, toning, and washing etc.) involved understanding chemistry at a basic level. Most of the at home chemistry experiments they list are one and done. I’d be surprised if any of them inspired a kid to dig more.
I will say that starting in the 90s doing your own photo related chemical work could get you in trouble. If you trawl through the old usenet photo groups you’ll find stories of people being hassled by cops for owning scales and glassware. I’m sure it’s worse now.
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#14When I was in my early teens I had a short period (after reading "The Mysterious Island") when I got really interested in chemistry. This kinda ended quickly and abruptly after I synthesised some nitroglycerin and actually after I tested it around our house. Fun times. Some stuff probably still orbiting Earth and I had to lie a lot to explain all the shattered glass. My parents never figured out what I did but that was the end of my lab. (Make note to screen my kid's purchases for any nitrogen compounds...)
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#15Given the ease of entry for other STEM disciplines, it is evident to see how Amateur Chemistry can easily be seen as having a high barrier of entry. Not only do you need to sought the chemical reagents and equipments, you also need a mentor or a supervisor to ensure that the experiments are conducted in a safe manner.
Another thing I've noticed while growing up in India is that being a chemist in the 21st is no longer deemed a desirable nor profitable career pathway, compared to being a developer. I'm not sure if such sentiment carries in the rest of the world.
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#16I wonder if some other country might be different? Brasil?
IIRC, countries with major resource extraction industries, internationally outsourced for lack of domestic expertise, with associated lost value capture, are more highly incentivized to increase STEM graduates. Unlike the US, where the research I recall, said there's no shortage outside of programming (and PhD flexibility). And indeed without programming, there'd be a large oversupply.
In addition to WoD and WoT and consumer product safety, there's also liability, and insurance, and others. I've been struck by increasing societal viscosity these last decades, and a seemingly increasing intolerance of risk and harm.
So perhaps some other country, with different internals and context, might be a ready market for 1960's US chemistry sets?
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#17Very true. Also the general knowledge of chemistry in the general population is absolutely abysmal. So much of our modern world relies on chemistry yet barely anyone knows shit about it.
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#18We have unreal engine, we have really good programmers, we have countless frameworks.... how far off are we from a bio-chemical sandbox simulation? We have soft body dynamics simulations like Beam Ng drive, anything like this for chemistry? i've searched on Steam a few times and nothing sticks out. Im imagining a literal photoreal highschool chem lab set up. I would love something like this, without all the risk of t…
A simulator like this would require a lot of simplifications: a table of template chemical reactions and thermochemical mixing rules which are bound to be wrong in edge cases. It doesn't take many reagents before you hit a combinatorial wall where the combination has never been tried in practice, and while it could be estimated with quantum mechanics in theory, that gets expensive.
This is what popped into my head as well. In situations where you have multiple phases so that Phase A is required to reach a certain temp before adding Phase B, but Phase A must reach a specific temp then cool back down within a range before adding Phase B. Once Phase A and Phase B are combined, do you stir, blend, whisk, whip, etc? What happens when you need to use 0.14 grams, but add 0.15 grams?
Each little variance as minor as they may seem will affect the results. Making something one time is a definite achievement. Making the same thing multiple times, or successfully scaling the formula up/down is also noteworthy as well. (assuming doing things by hand as amateur from the title implies to me)
All of that to say, it would be MFing impressive if some sort of simulation could accurately demonstrate these kinds of variations in the results. Could be useful to try to recreate where something went wrong as a sort of reversing/debugging the result.
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#19Given the ease of entry for other STEM disciplines, it is evident to see how Amateur Chemistry can easily be seen as having a high barrier of entry. Not only do you need to sought the chemical reagents and equipments, you also need a mentor or a supervisor to ensure that the experiments are conducted in a safe manner. Another thing I've noticed while growing up in India is that being a chemist in the 21st is no longe…
> being a chemist in the 21st is no longer deemed a desirable nor profitable career
Perhaps those in some profitable chemistry careers now keep their knowledge in smaller circles.
Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry
#20Very true. Also the general knowledge of chemistry in the general population is absolutely abysmal. So much of our modern world relies on chemistry yet barely anyone knows shit about it.
Is there a primer I could read to refresh my knowledge of basic chemistry? I prefer the written format. A 50-100 pages document would be ideal. I don't mind chemical equations and math.