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jowrose

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About jowrose

  • Birthday 11/17/1988

Profile Information

  • Location
    Illinois
  • Interests
    Tennis, Ping Pong, Comedy Central, my two labs (one's for experiments, the other is a puppy)
  • College Major/Degree
    Science (maybe chemistry or biology)
  • Favorite Area of Science
    chemistry
  • Biography
    I'm addicted to The Daily Show (and The Colbert Report)
  • Occupation
    Student

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  1. Hey Woelen, what kind of disposable battery are you talking about? And how would I go about getting one...
  2. Yeah, I'm learning about both of these theories in a chemistry class right now and am a little confused, particularly by the molecular theory. The whole bonding and antibonding, sigma, pi, sigma-star, all that stuff can be a little intimidating. Well, to me at least...
  3. Yeah, I'm not ever going to do that again. Sorry about the describing in too much detail, it never crossed my mind.
  4. That last sentence, in retrospect, is extremely ironic. Here's a not-so-nice story... Once upon a time (about 2 hours ago), me and my friend went to the middle of the street with our knex/rocket car. I was videotaping (though I didn't get any very good footage), and my friend was watching. I lit the fuse, and we both backed up about 20 feet. The car moved forward a bit, and then with a massive BOOOOM it blew up. We only found about 10 percent of the knex car, along with a completely inside-out piece of copper piping. Industrial copper piping. Now, in true scientific fashion, I will analyze the results of my highly unscientific experiment. My rocket was composed of a piece of copper pipe (one end was sealed in the factory into a bullet-esque shape) and an end cap that had three very small holes drilled into it. The holes were I think 1/16 inch diameter (just a wee bit too small, methinks...). The cap was secured to the pipe fitting with nails. I drilled 2 holes into both the cap and pipe, and pounded a nail into each corresponding hole, securing the cap. When the pressure built up to, oh, a few hundred psi, the copper ruptured and let out all the gases with tremendous force. The knex car did not survive. Now, I know I'm a "kewl" or whatever you people like to call idiots like me who do stupid things. And I can say with certainty that I will never try what I did today ever again. It scared the hell out of me. I'll stick to smoke bombs and REAL scientific experiments.
  5. I've always melted the mixture before, and have only had one accident (given it was with about 300 grams, and indoor no less...). What i'm thinking about now is trying to create a rocket with copper piping. I found this special piece at the home depot, and i'm going to fill it with the fuel and then secure a cap to the end. I'll drill a hole at the end, insert a wick, and see if it flies... I did a little testing by placing a rocket on this car made of Knex (yeah, it's not very scientific) and shooting it down my street, but the cap blew off with all the pressure so I'm going to find a better way to secure it.
  6. All instructions for creating rocket fuel from KNO3 and sucrose call for the ingredients to be mixed in a ratio of 3:2 (KNO3:sucrose). Doing molar mass calcs, I found the molar ratio to be 9 mol KNO3 to 4 mol sucrose. Does that create different products from the equation you came up with, or just much messier products? If I was to mix the ingredients in the ratio given by your equation, would I get a better reaction (for rocket fuel, at least)?
  7. Biochemistry would probably still be important, as genetic engineering does require a knowledge of the atomic structure of DNA, RNA, mRNA, proteins, etc.
  8. Ok I was trying to come up with a balanced equation for the reaction between KNO3 and sucrose, C12H22O11. I think I figured out the relative amounts of reactants by using the generally accepted ratio (by weight) of 3 KNO3 to 2 Sucrose. 4 C12H22O11 + 9 KNO3 --> ? Or, if this is better; 8 C12H22O11 + 18 KNO3 --> ? I did some thinking as to possible products, and here's my best guess: 8 C12H22O11 + 18 KNO3 --> 87 C + 88 H2O + 18 KNO2 + 9CO2 My idea was that the H and O atoms from sucrose form water, leaving elemental carbon, some of which combines with oxygen from the decomposition of the KNO3, leaving KNO2. I considered NO2 as a product, but dismissed it because I didn't think K2O would form. I really don't know much about chemistry, so this is really just a somewhat educated guess. Any help is appreciated; I'm not asking anyone to come up with the whole reaction, just maybe a few hints as to what the products are. Thanks, john
  9. Hey Augment, I'm a junior in high school as well, and facing a similar dilemma. I want to major in science, as you do (but maybe no biochem), and have been looking around for colleges with good science programs. I'm heading over to the east coast (I live near Chicago) to go take a look at colleges over spring break; I think we're looking at Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Rensselaer, Boston U and maybe one more. Rensselaer looks really nice, especially from a scientific viewpoint (they're really big on science, much like MIT). I'll try to remember to post anything interesting I find out in 2 weeks after I get back. -john
  10. Is there any way to get only the ions of a metal into a solution? Say you have a solution of CuCl2. Is there a way to remove the chloride ions, leaving aqueous Cu2+ without reducing the copper to copper metal?
  11. Well it's really warm here in Chicago. Which is good in the sense that I'm not freezing whenever I walk outside, but bad in the sense that we'll never have a snow day. Man we haven't had one in a really long time.
  12. Ok, I remember learning about partial fraction decomposition a while ago, and how it involved separating a fraction into the 2 fractions that existed before they were multiplied by a fraction of 1 to obtain identical denominators. However, I have forgotten how to do this, and I was wondering if someone could refresh my memory on how it's done. Thanks, john
  13. Zeff can be crudely designated as the number of electrons in an atom minus the number of "core" electrons (aka all electrons except the valence ones). When using this calculation, it can be seen that Zeff (written as Z subscript "eff") increases along a period (not taking into acount transition metals). This means that atomic radius decreases along a period, and also makes the ionization energy (and electronegativity) a lot higher. However, there are some exceptions. Take O and N, for example. The I.E. of O is smaller than that of N because with N you are removing an electron from a half-filled p subshell, which is somewhat stable.
  14. Then why, after pulling an all-nighter, will someone collapse physically? Are they lacking energy, or is it a symptom of mental exhaustion?
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