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A requiem for amateur chemistry

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Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#111

Post by wrp »

Aunche wrote: post #105
wrp wrote: post #65

Another aspect of this issue is the apparent difference in intellectual preparedness of kids today. I think this is partly due to educational environment and partly a result of selection bias (in that accounts of the past focus on the "smart" kids). When I was a teenager, rummaging around the attic at grandma's house I stumbled upon my dad's old scientific stuff. I was shocked at the sophistication of what a high sch…

> By my time in the 1970s, home electronics projects aimed at teenagers had devolved to "Stick this here, and that there, and connect the battery, and gee whiz isn't that neat!" I'm much younger than you, but that wasn't my experience at all. My dad got me this kit [1] when I was in fifth grade, and it was great. I got completely lost when it talked about transistors, but the projects were still fun (considering my v…

Perhaps I was being overly dismissive, but that's the kind of thing I had in mind. You have a small set of components and a limited set of illustrative circuits to make by laying in wires. The older projects I referred to involved designing circuits for practically usable equipment. So it was a much higher order of difficulty.

By the way, I had similar things as a kid and loved them. I don't mean to trample on anyone's fond memories.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#112

Post by girvo »

azalemeth wrote: post #107
girvo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uniquely Australian. I do love this country, and love living here, but the “larrikin” culture we put forward is frankly a facade — we’re a culture of rules and rule followers. Laws on laws on laws, for better or worse. It’s not inherently a bad thing, either, but can have some somewhat absurd outcomes at times. And it’s state-by-state. Queensland where I live is a fascinating mix of extremely wide reaching laws banni…

What's a gel blaster? And how do they enforce the glassware ban -- schools, universities and "protect" companies okay, but people and "improper" companies not?

Exactly.

A gel blaster is basically a BB gun that fires “soft” (they’re not soft) gel balls

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#113

Post by wrp »

melony wrote: post #96
majormajor wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually-educational things for kids haven't gone away entirely, though they've certainly changed shape. There are a lot of kids and teenager related products around programming and microcontroller-related hobby projects that teach and require deeper understanding of the concepts. Building a radio, on the other hand, when AM/FM radio is now 90-100 years old instead of 20-30... that wouldn't interest me nearly as much…

The mathematics of radios are a lot more difficult than the basic boolean logic and discrete math for intro to programming. Radios and circuits are in differential equations territory. A thorough explanation of the RF concept of "ground" and transmission lines is impossible to do at the high school level without handwaving away most of the details.

> [things]...impossible to do at the high school level without handwaving away most of the details.

Something about my dad's generation is that I observed them to be more ready to resort to workbench tinkering to get over patches where their math gave out. Following your point, maybe this results from their early experiences of aiming beyond their math capabilities.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#114

Post by vixen99 »

At least some connection with the following, surely? Years ago Scientific American had an Amateur Scientist column. This was sadly abandoned in 2001 apparently due to the lack of an appropriate contributor. Its projects are listed here.

http://amasci.com/amateur/sciamdx.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amateur_Scientist

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#115

Post by Gordonjcp »

possiblydrunk wrote: post #63

It's a pity that governments have deemed 'interesting' chemistry an illegitimate hobby. Many chemists and biologists I know were inspired as kids by potentially risky chemical reactions - they were fun :). My boss grew up in the UK, relished those experiments growing up, and said they led him to eventually complete a PhD in chemistry. He later went on to win a Nobel Prize (as a molecular biologist, though). Maybe we'…

The UK did have a unique problem with "amateur chemists" when I was growing up though, and even now the shadow of Republicanism means I need to keep all the nitrate fertiliser and tractor diesel securely locked up.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#116

Post by bsder »

atemerev wrote: post #90
bsder wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you need to be fairly far up the chain of mathematics and physics before you can build intuition about inorganic chemstry. Oddly, organic chemistry is, to a certain extent, easier to build intutition about as the lower levels are a lot of "this reaction takes thingit A from the molecule and puts on thingit B with n% efficiency." This make organic very similar to solving jigsaw puzzles.

Come on, I was balancing equations at the age of 8. Knowing the multiplication table is enough.

Given a reaction, you can balance it with fairly simple math.

However, if you want intuition as to how to create a new reaction or a novel molecule, simple math really isn't enough.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#117

Post by whatwherewhy »

wrp wrote: post #106
watwut wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not like average teenager understood those in 1950 however. And it is not even the case that kids today were less educated either. You have today individual kids doing leetcode on pretty high level. You have then doing a lot of stuff, but it is different stuff. Meanwhile radio and circuits are not cool anymore nor new anymore. Comparably less people is even interested.

> ...it is not even the case that kids today were less educated either. This claim could be supported or contradicted by evidence. Do you have any? My experience is not K-12 education, but at the college level, standardized measures such as the GRE show declining levels of ability over the decades. A given score today doesn't mean the same as 40 years ago, because the test has needed to be recalibrated for a lower av…

Lower average could mean just that much more people have access to (higher) education now.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#118

Post by refurb »

gnull wrote: post #71
possiblydrunk wrote: post #63

It's a pity that governments have deemed 'interesting' chemistry an illegitimate hobby. Many chemists and biologists I know were inspired as kids by potentially risky chemical reactions - they were fun :). My boss grew up in the UK, relished those experiments growing up, and said they led him to eventually complete a PhD in chemistry. He later went on to win a Nobel Prize (as a molecular biologist, though). Maybe we'…

Don't governments allow it when it's done under supervision?

At least in the US there are no regulations specifically stopping you from amateur chemistry.

The challenges tend to be:

- it’s hard (not impossible) to procure some chemicals because most suppliers will only sell to businesses

- there are regulations around safety hazards like storage of flammable liquid in residential area (these are good regulations, I’d rather my neighbor isn’t storing 20 gals of ether for example)

- there are regulations around manufacturing explosives (even in tiny quantities)

But that said, there is nothing stopping someone from jumping through the needed hoops. Incorporate a business (not very expensive), get a license from the ATF (mostly time to do paperwork and stuff - like buying a machine gun), follow fire regulations.

The other option is to just procure chemicals through other products. Naphtha is basically a mixture of hexanes. You can buy a lot of nitrate salts used for food or gardening. It’s not hard to procure metals.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#119

Post by pasquinelli »

wrp wrote: post #65

Another aspect of this issue is the apparent difference in intellectual preparedness of kids today. I think this is partly due to educational environment and partly a result of selection bias (in that accounts of the past focus on the "smart" kids). When I was a teenager, rummaging around the attic at grandma's house I stumbled upon my dad's old scientific stuff. I was shocked at the sophistication of what a high sch…

i've always had the impression that a high school diploma meant a lot more back then. hard to say if high school education has been lowered to match the lesser value of a diploma, or if the esteem a diploma commands has dropped with lowered standards.

i wonder what forces are at play to cause that change.

Re: A requiem for amateur chemistry

#120

Post by DocTomoe »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #15

Given 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…

In Germany, a professional chemist once told me to have a "career" in chemistry, you pretty much need to get your PHD (that alone is highly selective), which means you enter the workforce at age 35 on average - which sets you back ten years of life income (which you are unlikely to recoup.

The alternative is lab assistant (still usually holding Master's degrees for doing essentially the same experiment over and over and over again for different batches of the same product, which means relatively low pay) and chemical workers (there's a reason there's a worker's rights song about them [1]).

Doing experiments and learning new stuff in the process is fun. But to make a career of that you have to spend a lot of your life and your life's earnings - or go into industry, which is essentially factory work (which is not about experiments or learning new stuff)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Z8xryXylY

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