mississippichem

There are no studies to back this up. I wasn't trying to imply a factual statement. My definition of best times will obviously differ from yours or anyone else's. The word best might be the most subjective word ever. I just feel that whenever the Republicans get absolute control we end up blowing our money on medicare and obscure wars. Whenever the Democrats get total control, we end up spending too much money on medicaid and other entitlements. Once again, my definition of wasteful spending probably differs from that of others though. Just an opinion.

Become a master "musketsman" I guarantee you'll be one of the first since 1812. Think of the potential resume!: -Bachelors degree in physics. -Operated online science discussion forum -Can hit tin can with musket at 100 meters. I would hire you. If for nothing else, your patience and determination.

No one wanted to finish the job in Korea earlier last century. Now we have an entire nation of people that are starving, uneducated, lack any basic human rights, and are involuntarily and completely engulfed in pseudo-religious dictator worship. I agree, Marat, to a point; the US should not concern itself with every little political conflict that arises in the world, such as Iraq. But it's disgusting that the whole world watches and eats popcorn when an entire population of people are enslaved with no way out. I thought we had the UN for things like this, what happened? I don't want to hear about any more "humanitarian" wars until North Korea has been liberated and the Kim dynasty is destroyed. Kim already has nuclear weapons, I guess we are waiting for him to develop an intercontinental GPS guided delivery system.

Yeah, metal is often not done right. However, when it is done right, metal and classical music share a lot of similarities music theory wise. If Bach were to come back and here today's metal, he would probably cringe because of all the parallel fifths, the biggest no-no in classical music harmony before Igor Stravinsky famously did away with that. So all you metal heads out there, go listen to the Fire Bird Suite by Igor Stravinsky, I doubt you will be disappointed.

Interesting, never heard of that reaction before. Do you know if [ce]BH_{2}^{+}[/ce] is part of the intermediate?

Oh, sorry, good catch Horza. Should've said that borohydride will reduce aldehydes or ketones to the corresponding alcohol, but won't reduce the carboxylic acid.

That's quite a logical leap from every US citizen being one person to it being the responsibility of citizens to provide basic needs to others.

The best times in American politics are when the white house and congress are split along party lines. Like when Clinton was in office with a Republican congress. It keeps the balance and forces cooperation. The fringe of both sides gets marginalized. Given this is still the "lame duck session" though. I think better economic times are on the horizon. Better fiscal times...not so sure.

Yep, might want to add dropwise. If there is any water in your solution you will find out quickly...the reaction of [ce] LiAl_4 [/ce] and water has some serious kick to it. Be careful.

If [math] log_{a}b=x [/math] then [math] a^{x}=b [/math] so, in your case... [math] log_{10}(5) \approx 0.7[/math] then [math] 10^{0.7} \approx 5 [/math]

I'm not sure what the "most" hygroscopic compound is. I'm not sure if anyone knows that. [ce] MgSO_4 [/ce] can absorb 12 moles of water per mole. So one gram of [ce] MgSO_4 [/ce] can absorb about 1.8 mL of water. [ce] CaCl_2 [/ce] is another common drying agent as far as simple salts go.

How many chemists does it take to make a bubble float...?

Color can be thought of as frequency or wavelength. They are really just different expressions of the same thing because light always travels at c in a vacuum. One just has units of length while the other has units of count/time. If c isn't constant in a vacuum, the majority of modern physics would have to be overturned.

Yes. Drying agents like [ce]MgSO_4[/ce] are often used to pull water out of other materials in industry or chemicals in the lab. The various active ingredients in under-arm deodorant are hygroscopic. [ce] AlCl_3 [/ce] used to be used in deodorants for its hygroscopic properties. It is still in use but is gradually being replaced by others that serve a similar function.

Everyone knows Rush Limbaugh is the political equivalent of Jerry Springer. I think Stephen Colbert should have designed his stage persona more in the style of Limbaugh rather than O'Reilly. It would've had more lasting funny power. Surprising that O'Reilly beat Hannity in that demographic though. It must be an age related phenomenon. Old people identify with an old pundit more I guess. I'm surprised Olberman can even stay on TV. I have no vendetta against him politically, but his show is so boring! Maybe we need more boring shows though. Boring seems to roughly equate objective, not that I would dare expect a pundit to be objective...

Electrons, neutrons and protons don't behave as classical bodies. The Bohr Model, classical physics' best shot at at the atom, deviates from experiment significantly. If helium was moved to group II, and the f-block was stuck in the table between the s and d blocks, the current periodic table describes the Aufbau principle very well; with a few exceptions like Cr and Cu in the ground state. Even these exceptions are explainable by treatments like Slater's rules and the concept of spin pairing energy. Quantum mechanics has been dead on accurate at confirming the organization of the periodic table and has succeeded where classical theory has failed.

Yeah, chemistry gets to be a super pain with elements way off the nuclear "island of stability". This work tends to not get research money either because no marketable ideas can come from a compound of an element with a 2 s half-life. Not to mention that spectroscopy makes less and less sense as oxidation states become less and less defined in high "n" f-, and predictably g- and h-orbitals. Lets go ahead and make the "un-pronouncable" Schrodingerium

I've got 3/4 of a Jazz studies degree on bass (upright and electric). I changed to chemistry about three and a half years ago (though I studied it for most of my childhood), but I still play as much as possible. I've been playing for about thirteen years. I also play a bit of alto saxophone, guitar, and piano, but no formal training on guitar.

Thought I would add this; a simple expression to help swallow the concept: [math] f = \frac{c}{\lambda} [/math] Where "c" is the speed of light, [math] \lambda [/math] is the frequency of the light, and "f" is the frequency. This only works in a vacuum because light doesn't have a average velocity of "c" in different media as Swansont stated.

Microwaves are of energy near the magnitude of vibrations and rotations of molecules. Really closer to the rotation side of that as IR frequencies are more characteristic of molecular vibrations. There is some overlap here. The treatment gets quite mathy, but it basically amounts to a difference between center of mass and center of charge in a molecule. Molecules that are highly polarizable and show a significant permanent dipole moment (asymmetric distribution of charge) often absorb microwaves well but there are many factors to consider including the shape of the molecule itself. Water is a very good microwave absorber, it has a large dipole moment and a small energy requirement to rotate about the O-H bonds. Microwaves aren't energetic enough to break covalent bonds either (there are exceptions), but they have enough juice to disrupt intermolecular forces (van der Waals?) that might hold polymer bulk structures together.

Any questions about the sucrose solution? I doubt John Cuthber was trying to throw something in your face though. He may be terse, but he just wants the correct information to propagate through the forum as it it his responsibility as a resident expert; and he knows what he is talking about. No need to take offense, everyone gets corrected sometimes, even experts by other experts.

Oxygen is an oxidizer. For combustion to happen, there has to be something available to be oxidized i.e. fuel.

2-hydroxybenzoic acid, right? John Cuthber is correct. Salicyclic acid is not a chiral compound. It is superposable on its own mirror image, and more formally it displays a [math] \sigma[/math]-mirror plane in the "plane" of the benzene ring. Try it for yourself. Try to draw a pair of enantiomers for salicyclic acid, you'll find that it can't be done.

You should look up [math]\alpha[/math]-halogenation of ketones. This is a fairly common reaction. Depending on what level chemistry student you are, you might need some information on tautomers to make sense of how the product formed.

It's nice to hear of a promising superconductor besides the yttrium-barium-cuprates. Still in the layered cuprate family, but without Yttrium which is nice since yttrium is hell on earth to extract from its native blended-lanthanoid ore. Chemical engineers are already thankful before mass production even begins.