Chemistry, Computing, and Whatever

Chem 400 for January 27

The great thing about the alumni panel is, first, that we get to connect with some of our former students and second, that we get a sense of how their Guilford education them in their current ventures. We even think the current students gain something from it. And it never hurts when they all talk about the value of presentation skills given that the first presentations are next week.

Chem 400 for January 20

We started tonight with Gail describing the difference between a peer-reviewed article and a review article. That was in response to student questions that demonstrated they didn't really know the difference. And that made me think about how I first learned the difference, but I really have no idea how that happened.

Chem 400: First class

So it seemed appropriate that for the capstone seminar for the chemistry major and minor, we should explore what kinds of chemistry there are and what are the common themes that connect these fields to what they've seen in their classes.

First, the kinds of chemistry the students and faculty came up with:

Physical
Organic
Medicinal
Inorganic
Polymer
Materials
Bio
Nuclear
Forensic
Geo
Analytical
Food
Guest-host
Atmospheric
Neuro
Water/Oceanic/Marine
Immuno
Pulp & Paper
Textile
Nano
Computational
Theoretical
Pharmaceutical
Bio-Inorganic
Bio-Physical
Bio-Analytical
Astro
Chemical Biology
Chemical Physics
Clinical
Environmental
Electro
Solid state

We know this list isn't complete, but we needed to move on with the class.

Then, in thinking of the common themes that run through all these kinds of chemistry, we developed some broad categories. First, there's what we consider at the atomic and molecular level (what I typically call the sub-microscopic):

Atomic interactions
Bonding
Reactions
Electron Movement
Orbitals

Then, we talked about analysis and characterization, which led to the following (incomplete) set of techniques (that covers much of what we have at Guilford):

NMR
IR
Mass Spec
HPLC
GC

We went back to basics and discussed fundamental measurements--volumetric and mass--that everyone's done since their first chemistry lab. (Which led to the best moment of the night--if you can't remember the word "buret," just refer to "that drippy thing.")

Finally, a bunch of more macroscopic physical chemistry/properties that we study

Thermodynamics/energy
Equilibrium
Kinetics
Magnetic/electrical properties

All in all, a pretty good list illustrating that the kinds of chemistry in the first list have multiple connections to all the themes below.

The rest of the class was an introduction to SciFinder Scholar to allow everyone to start working on their assignments, including doing the research for their first presentation. Coming up next week, presentation skills.