Search Results for: atom

Making a Non-Stick Frying Pan the Old Fashioned Way: Creating Polymers at Home

Back in the day, if you wanted a non-stick cooking skillet, your best option was to do it yourself by seasoning a cast metal pan. Sheryl Canter has an excellent post describing the science behind the “seasoning” process. The key is to bake on a little bit of oil to create a strong cross-linked polymer … Continue reading “Making a Non-Stick Frying Pan the Old Fashioned Way: Creating Polymers at Home”

Crystals, Non-Crystals and Quasicrystals

Daniel Shechtman was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2011). He discovered that matter can exist not only as crystals, which have a regular geometric arrangement of atoms, and amorphous non-crystals that do not, but also as quasicrystals which have a different type of atomic ordering. The Guardian has an interesting article on Schechtman, … Continue reading “Crystals, Non-Crystals and Quasicrystals”

Faster than Light

Physicists at CERN believe they’ve measured neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. Since most of modern physics is based on the speed of light being the upper speed limit for practically everything, (remember, in E=mc2, c is the speed of light) this is somewhat of a big deal. NPR has an article: Notes … Continue reading “Faster than Light”

3d Molecule of the Month

Molecular models tend to fascinate. As a introduction to the chemistry of elements, students seem to like putting them together, and they tend to enjoy finding out what their molecules are called. You can’t beat fitting together molecules by hand as a learning experience, but 3Dchem has a nice collection of interactive, three-dimensional molecules, including … Continue reading “3d Molecule of the Month”

Periodic Table Spiral Galaxy

The objective is to show the shape of the whole and to express the beauty and cosmic reach of the periodic system. — Stewart (2006): The Chemical Galaxy The traditional periodic table of the elements breaks the elements into rows as their chemical and physical characteristics repeat themselves. But since the sequence of elements is … Continue reading “Periodic Table Spiral Galaxy”

Setting up a Computer with Free Software

[Updated: 7/22/17] The open-source and free-software movements have matured to the point where a teacher or student can reliably outfit a new computer with software that is free and compatible with their proprietary cousins. The first place to look for free software for whatever purpose you need should probably be SourceForge. It feels odd having … Continue reading “Setting up a Computer with Free Software”

Squid Dissection

To follow up my own attempts at a fish anatomy lesson, I asked the people at the Gulf Coast Research Lab’s Marine Education Center to include a dissection in their program for our Adventure Trip. They chose squid. Squid are nice because they’re mostly soft tissue and the organs are fairly easy to identify. They’re … Continue reading “Squid Dissection”