spin-1/2-nuclei

I agree with the other posters here. If you need an industrial strength process & reactor for making acetic anhydride I am sure you can contact the the chemical engineering department of any university familiar with your company or perhaps where one of the employees in R&D or process chemistry might have graduated from - and they would be more than happy to give you a consultation on designing a process and purchasing/building the appropriate reactor/system if necessary.. You can also typically contact industry consultants that may have even built said reactors for other companies etc... Best of luck with your research.. Cheers, Spin

@iggy, First off I think the discussion of compartmentalization is on topic given this thread is about the justification of one's belief in god as this is a quantification of now a catholic friend of mine who also happens to be a scoentist believes in god. To the other poster's comments, compartmentalization is exactly what you'd ca what my fried does. There is no other appropriate word for it. He leaves religion out of science and science out of religion. Iggy thinks the catholic church does not allow this, but I disagree. The catholic church turns a blind eye to many things that would make being a catholic unpatable. For example, natural family planning is preached and preached - BUT - many western Catholics in 1st world countries have only one or two kids. How is this possible, when many of them are still sexually active? It's obvious they use birth control, but it wouldn't be very lucrative for the church to start denying these people communion and/or excommunicating them - so the church turns a blind eye. My friend has made his position clear in numerous bible studies and has never been chastised by any members or priests associated with his church. My objection to iggy's position is that if 90% of Catholics loosely interpret the church's position as well as those stated in the bible then taking literal tranations of texts and even statements made by the Pope surely means that there are very few real Catholics. Many priests say that the Pope does not tell people what to believe in regards to science. As a link I quoted earlier points out, the Church doesn't even require catholics to believe the world is round, or that virgins cannot have children. I find that strange, since science has proven many times over that virgins don't get pregnant and the world can in fact be circumnavigated.. Thus clearly the application of truth cannot contradict truth is not as literal as iggy makes it out to be and this can surely be seen when observing the lives of everyday catholics. Thus I maintain that science cannot explain religion, even for Catholics as they have yet to rewrite some foundations of their religion - like the virgin birth, genesis, age of the earth - to reflect things that have been proven scientifically. Thus, it is my interpretation that the Pope should rather have said truth cannot contradict the interpretation of the bible and thus said interpretation will become dynamic depending on what science proves. He even cautioned that new interpretations might not be swiftly forthcoming and that apparent contradictions may sti exist - they clearly do - and the church's position is that people like my friend should during the interim trust in the bible - even if they don't understand. This is what he does, and it is quite necessary as a scientist then to compartmentalize. Only iggy's interpretation disallows this. Clearly the majority of Catholics do not interpret these statements made by the pope literally and neither does the pope himself or surely Catholics would be forced to believe that rather ridiculous things.. Iggy's notion that Catholics do not believe god is above the law/sciene of man and capable of miracles is also incongruent with catholic teachings as no catholic expects their daughters to become randomly pregnant as virgins. Thus Catholics very clearly believe that there are times when god can and does violate the laws of nature. Thus I maintain that compartmentalization of religion from science remains a valid approach. Even if I personally prefer to have no opinion on god at all and thus feel that my position is the ONLY scientifically valid position, that doesn't mean that people who are both religious and scientists (like my friend) are not sensible nor does it mean those who are religious are not sensible, but rather simply they are using subjective reasoning whereas science relies on objective reasoning, thus the two remain incompatible. To be more clear, one cannot interpret science iggy - it either is or is not valid based on observations. The fact that the interpretations of the bible can be changed by Catholics further proves my point that there is no place for scientific reasoning in religion. Cheers

Then why are you still confused? I never said he follows his own theology. He believes the same things his other church members believe etc.. It isn't like he is practicing a different type of catholicism. That is NOT what compartmentalization means. For example, when you partition a hard drive between two operating systems, you aren't running different operating systems that are somehow different than they would be in any other case. This is why you are confused.. "While Catholics believe the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it is true, one cannot take individual biblical quotes or passages and say each one is literally true, Pope Benedict XVI said. “It is possible to perceive the Sacred Scriptures as the word of God” only by looking at the Bible as a whole, “a totality in which the individual elements enlighten each other and open the way to understanding,” the Pope wrote in a message to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. In his message, the Pope said clearer explanations about the Catholic position on the divine inspiration and truth of the Bible were important because some people seem to treat the Scriptures simply as literature while others believe that each line was dictated by the Holy Spirit and is literally true. Neither position is Catholic, the Pope said. “An interpretation of the sacred writings that disregards or forgets their inspiration does not take into account their most important and precious characteristic, that they come from God,” he said. The Catholic position is that the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writers so that “human words express the word of God”, he said. “Through his word God wants to communicate to us the whole truth about himself and his plan of salvation for humanity,” the Pope wrote. “A commitment to discovering ever more the truth of the sacred books, therefore, is a commitment to seeking to better know God and the mystery of his saving will.” “It is not possible to apply the criterion of inspiration or of absolute truth in a mechanical way, extrapolating a single phrase or expression,” the Pope wrote in the message released today at the Vatican."- http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/05/05/pope-insists-bibles-truth-is-found-in-its-totality/ Thus, I maintain that my friend is perfectly within his rights as a catholic to compartmentalize science with religion. As he told me, the man believes 100% in what he reads in the bible - and the scientists believes 100% in what he observes in the lab and never shall the two meet. You may object to his "right" to do this, but his priest certainly doesn't. This is only a problem because of YOUR interpretation of how my friend must behave to be catholic. The church surely does NOT follow your interpretation of their own laws, or they'd have tossed out the idea that there is a god long ago since science has been to date unable to prove god's existence. The Pope was in no way saying that all "truths" in the bible should be backed up by or even aligned with science before they can be taught as truths. Clearly there are exceptions like the virgin birth, and people living hundreds of years to name a few. Why haven't they called for an asterisk to be placed next to any of those statements in the bible so surely their interpretation of "truth cannot contradict truth" is not as literal as you make it out to be.. What you are basically saying is that actors and actresses must believe 100% that they are the person they are pretending to be on stage. Obviously that isn't true. Well the same is apparently true for a religious scientist in my friend's position. As I said before, as a man he believes 100% in what the bible says and the church etc, and as a scientist he believes what the data tells him. I see no contradiction with catholicism here, and neither does my friend or his priest. Cheers

I couldn't agree more. Well said. Cheers

@iggy Did you not see the word interpret in your own quote? Shrugs Moreover, as I've been saying but you failed to read and thus quoted out of context, the church makes the interpretations not the individual catholics, thus the word of god and that of the church are not for the individual to question. This is why my friend, as a scientist, is forces to compartmentalize. It may take the church 50 years to skate around the interpretation of the age of the earth as reported in the bible, my friend kinda has to get science done during that time. You're comparing apples and oranges and that is what makes this discussion futile. Cheers

@essay, I disagree. The only moral/ethical way to approach this is honesty and honesty is unfortunately pessimistic. As a scientist I feel I am obligated to tell things as they are as opposed to placing rosy spins on things that in reality simply smell like shit because they are in fact shit. I'm a research chemist and my projects get funded based on how much money they can bring in not how much help they can provide for mankind. That is to say treatment for an illness is far more likely to get funding from big pharma than a cure. That's because cures cut in to their profit margins... Moreover patents are the devil. If I come up with a brilliant idea, my university just patents that, then it gets bought from them by major industries to prevent loss of profits. That is because they are all about profit - nobody cares what helps mankind if the help isn't bringing in money. If you don't believe me look at what happened with the electric car and the buying up of patents for other greener technologies by big oil. Sorry, but as a scientists, my scientific opinion is that mankind is getting this really wrong, and the data suggests that I'm correct. Look at the swift decline of the west right now & all the other examples I've mentioned earlier. Corporations - not science run this planet and they are doing it wrong. What can I say, sometimes the truth hurts.. Cheers

While I admire your optimism I personally can't share it. Humans exploit other humans, that seems to be the nature of mankind. I need only look at the concerns over the economy etc and all the crap related to the upcoming elections in the USA to be sure of this. Money should not be finite, but it is, by design of those who have it. If I could simply print more money for the starving people in Africa I would, but the economy doesn't work that way and neither does the law. Resources on the other hand are most definitely finite. Not much that can be done about all the waste going on now given that: a.) the uber rich, banks, and the corporations (all interchangeable really) control everything and sustainability is not in their *immediate* best interest and most of them seem alarmingly incapable of cause and effect reasoning or foresight beyond yearly profit margins (thus here we are with sub-prime mortgage crashes, unemployed college grads drowning in student loan debt while tuition costs at state schools continue to rise, elderly people worried about the social security they paid into and were promised, soldiers returning home from war with no medical or social assistance, political crazies trying to find ways not to raise taxes on the uber rich and squeeze even more out from the already destitute ranks of the middle class, and yes starving children in the over exploited and long forgotten Africa, amongst other things) b.) many people still don't believe in things like global warming, population control, or the abolition of things like (racism, sexism, religious intolerance, discrimination against homosexuals, etc) I hate to say it, but mankind has always gotten this wrong in the past, and is continuing to do so. If anything our technology is more of a curse than a blessing. It seems to me to be more like a lit fire cracker in the hands of a toddler than a sword steadily held in the hands of a skilled martial artist.. We are f'ed as a species because on average we are stupid. There are plenty of smart people out there that have provided mankind with technological advancement that he simply doesn't have the emotional intelligence to be entrusted with. If there is a god, then god help us - and soon, because we surely cannot help ourselves.. Cheers

Hello, The reason a reaction occurs or does not occur is based on it's chemical potential. That is to say that reactions occur when the substrates are reactive - i.e. capable of perturbing each other. A good way to look at this is to study frontier molecular orbital theory. Which will describe what is called the homo-lumo gap of a molecule. "Fukui realized that a good approximation for reactivity could be found by looking at the frontier orbitals (HOMO/LUMO). This was based on three main observations of molecular orbital theory as two molecules interact: The occupied orbitals of different molecules repel each other. Positive charges of one molecule attract the negative charges of the other. The occupied orbitals of one molecule and the unoccupied orbitals of the other (especially the HOMO and LUMO) interact with each other causing attraction. From these observations, frontier molecular orbital (FMO) theory simplifies reactivity to interactions between the HOMO of one species and the LUMO of the other. This helps to explain the predictions of the Woodward–Hoffmann rules for thermal pericyclic reactions, which are summarized in the following statement: "A ground-state pericyclic change is symmetry-allowed when the total number of (4q+2)s and (4r)a components is odd" (4q+2)s refers to the number of aromatic, suprafacial electron systems; likewise, (4r)a refers to antiaromatic, antarafacial systems. It can be shown that if the total number of these systems is odd then the reaction is thermally allowed.[2]"- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_molecular_orbital_theory After you become comfortable with the information provide above I'd suggest that you look at the reaction mechanisms for both the hydroboration and the oxymercuration. One gives you the Markonikov alcohol (oxymercuration) and the other gives you the anit-Markonikov alcohol. This is an important difference in the regioselectivities of their mechanisms, which you will want to be very familar with. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to come back and ask. Cheers

Again you've misunderstood what I've said because the above in no way contradicts anything I've been saying or anything that my friend believes. To be more clear, I have no knowledge of a reprint of the bible to include the big bang or evolution, nor a change in the age of the earth etc, etc. There are no asterisk next to portions of the bible with corresponding footnotes stating that XY or Z apparently contradicts science thus we will stop teaching this as truth until a decision can be made. By your logic this is what all catholics do, and since it isn't, that surely means that you've misunderstood the inner workings of the church. That is simply because as I have been saying and saying you cannot apply the scientific method and the rigorous requirements of objective reasoning to matters that are purely subjective. Catholics in church are often taught not to question the bible, that is not for the individual catholic to do, that is for the Pope etc, and since my friend is an individual catholic and not the Pope he is forced to compartmentalize things that contradict what he knows to be scientifically valid - and yes those contradictions stand because there has been no reprint of the bible and the Pope has not called for footnotes to be placed next to creationism and genesis, has he? "For my part, when I received those taking part in your academy's plenary assembly on October 31, 1992, I had the opportunity with regard to Galileo to draw attention to the need of a rigorous hermeneutic for the correct interpretation of the inspired word. It is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say. In order to delineate the field of their own study, the exegete and the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences (cf. AAS 85 1/81993 3/8, pp. 764-772; address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, April 23, 1993, announcing the document on The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church: AAS 86 1/81994 3/8, pp. 232-243)." Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2000/03/Truth-Cannot-Contradict-Truth.aspx#ixzz1XA0ITxzK "Pope John Paul II also said: "A theory is a meta-scientific elaboration, which is distinct from, but in harmony with, the results of observation. With the help of such a theory a group of data and independent facts can be related to one another and interpreted in one comprehensive explanation. The theory proves its validity by the measure to which it can be verified. It is constantly being tested against the facts; when it can no longer explain these facts, it shows its limits and its lack of usefulness, and it must be revised." - http://atheism.about.com/od/popejohnpaulii/a/evolution.htm\'>http://atheism.about.com/od/popejohnpaulii/a/evolution.htm\ "None of this necessarily means that Pope John Paul II accepted evolution as a fact and it certainly doesn’t mean that Catholics are required to accept evolution as a fact. Instead, the address was meant to lay out for Catholics a basis for accepting evolutionary theory. There are many scientific facts that the Catholic Church doesn’t require Catholics to accept — that the Sun in as the center of the solar system and that the Earth is round, for example. The truth of these statements is obvious to everyone, but that doesn’t make them appropriate for religious doctrine either." - http://atheism.about.com/od/popejohnpaulii/a/evolution.htm According to the above you're still missing something critical in how the church and catholics interpret what Pope John Paul said. Catholics are taught, for the most part, that god is all powerful and mankind cannot explain or understand his ways, etc.. Thus, I maintain that you continue to grossly misinterpret the subjective via your attempts to square peg round hole objective reasoning as a tool to understand matters which by their very nature cannot be explained scientifically - since the goal post can always move in a subjective argument - just ask 3 different people to define the same thing.. the rightness or wrongness of it depends on the individual you are asking. This is why individual catholics are taught to get their interpretations from the Pope and even the Pope's interpretations change from one Pope to another, and as it stands now no revisions of the bible to include evolution, or big bang, or the sun being the center of the universe have been planned so I guess this Pope and all Pope's before him have spoken... Strange, given that we've been to space and know exactly where the sun is, isn't it? Guess you might want to inform all of the Popes that they themselves are not catholic. Cheers *note I meant to say the earth is not the center of the universe not fixed and revolves around the sun.

No, I personally don't think it's a pie in the sky. It is NECESSARY for everyone that is a member of the human race to start accepting that we are all in this together. Extreme poverty exists because people that have everything think they are entitled to as much as they can possibly acquire without regard for the consequences to everyone else. There is a finite amount of money and a very small percentage of mankind controls the majority of the world's resources and wealth. Growing food takes money, providing education, housing, and health care to your family takes money. There is a finite amount of money available in the world, and the Africans do not have their fair share of it. Now, when I say poor impoverished Africans, I mean all of them, including the poor white Afrikaners that are desolate in South Africa. One could say that they deserve the poverty that they've found themselves in. After all, what they did was unspeakable and after years of undeserved privilege they find themselves unable to obtain work because exploitation is not a marketable skill. I volunteer to help homeless Afrikaans kids who cannot afford to go to school and do not have access to quality education in maths and science as well. Black, white, red, brown, you don't stand a chance of making something out of yourself if you don't have a solid understanding of basic maths etc. People in that situation are at a severe disadvantage and run the risk of being manipulated and exploited by others who have been more fortunate. Westerners exploit other westerners, Africans exploit other Africans - although nowhere near as much as westerns exploit africans. So, until the majority of mankind figures out that we are all human beings and that "race"/class/ and other such differences are all just figments of our imagination we will continue to have these problems. It isn't as if westerns always got along in their past or even get along now, nor all native tribes in the Americas, and certainly the same is true for africans as well. Violence, intolerance, indifference, the desire to dehumanize fellow humans and place them into groups, selfishness, and other such forms of stupidity have always plagued mankind. When you couple the aforementioned weaknesses with things like greed what you get is a recipe for disaster. I'm not holding out faith that mankind will get this right. People just don't give a shit about things that don't impact them until they do. The problem with that approach is that once things start impacting one group the previously effected group stops giving a shit as well.. Thus, the cycle of stupidity continues via the pathway of revenge. Personally it is mind boggling. Mankind has all of this potential but we squander it all on petty things. Yet, these things are not for me to decide, so all I can do, is the best I can to help whoever I can however I can. Plenty of people say, just let the racist Afrikaners starve and take their medicine as they are owed it, but I don't see how that logic helps mankind to grow and move away from the hate-filled, violent, and exploitive practices of the past. To each his own I guess, but as I see it the weaknesses mentioned herein will be the death of us. Cheers..

Hello, I hate to say this, but getting a graduate degree in a science with the hopes of finding a job in said science isn't always the best motivation for entering a PhD. I'd personally suggest that you enter the PhD in physics, or medical physics, or biophysics whatever the case may be because you LOVE what you are doing - not because you expect to be able to find a good job afterwards. The sad reality is that jobs in science are hard to come by and they have pretty much always been that way. As Swansont said above, only a mere fraction of people earning PhDs actually obtain professorships, and even more depressing, only a mere fraction of people obtaining professorships actually obtain tenure. Moreover, typically to even be considered for even the crappiest of tenure track prof jobs you will have to have at least a postdoc, but most likely 2. If you end up working at a community college or as an adjunct you may very well wish you'd never gone to graduate school for physics, and if you end up working in a field that doesn't require a PhD in physics at all you may also feel shafted regarding the better paying job aspect. That being said, I am nervous daily about my ability to land a prof job and continue to do research - as that is what I love to do - BUT - I LOVE chemistry and physics, thus if I cannot get a tenure track prof job I will start my own small start-up research company and work as a pilot in my second field of expertise to finance it. If that doesn't prove viable, I will simply volunteer as a career post doc and work as a pilot to pay the bills, because I LOVE chemistry and physics and I'd have gotten a PhD even if there were zero job prospects for me. So, if physics is your passion, get the PhD. You are ONLY 27 it is NOT the end of your life by any stretch. You'll have to sacrifice other things, like maybe buying new cars less often or holding off on the purchase of a house to make up for the loss in retirement savings, but those things are neither here nor there (you can make that up by living really really cheaply). Best of luck, and don't let your age stop you from doing what you love! I was on a cross country motorcycle ride down the southern east cost last year - and there was a billboard for a 90 something year old woman that had finally gotten her undergrad degree - and it read something like - "The oldest college graduate in the world" or some such. It's never too late.. Cheers

I disagree. If there has been any misunderstanding it's you misunderstanding me. *you* are interpreting that catholicism doesn't allow - *apparent* - contradictions between the bible and science. This is not the case. Catholics like my friend believe in the bible - and yet they readily accept that carbon dating is valid and thus he age of the earth in the bible cannot be as *currently interpreted* by mankind.. this doesn't mean that they do not believe what their god says in the bible (in fact they believe their god to be capable of miracles).. thus, it is you that has misunderstood pretty much everything that I've said. I understand you quite well, unfortunately, you are the one failing to see the difference between literally feeling like the bible is wrong (not the case with my friend) and accepting that science has debunked some claims stated in the bible (carbon dating and the age of the earth claims made in the bible). Thus as I said before, my friend believes in miracles and his god being all powerful... Thus, while he accepts that the age for the earth reported in the bible can't possibly be right according to carbon dating - from a scientific perspective - his faith based perspective allows for him to say to himself (but god is all powerful, works in mysterious ways, and I have no right to questions his authority yada yada).. Hence what I've been saying and saying about compartmentalization.. Cheers

That's just bad science. There is no evidence that a poor african family with no children (2 people) can divide zero into more fractions than a poor african family with 5 children (7 people). The source of the problem isn't overpopulation. Granted, overpopulation doesn't help, but even if you let every single child starve to death in Ethiopia they'd still require food aid because as I said before zero doesn't divide into multiple fractions for anyone no matter fiscally responsible and no matter how much birth control is dispensed. You will solve the problems in Africa by expelling western mining companies immediately with no further compensation allowed, and providing food, and education. The problem with education is that it does not kick in immediately, and when you are starving to death and/or your children and family members are starving to death it is hard to get to school and actually learn anything useful. Thus, the key to solving this problem is expelling ALL of the western business that are currently exploiting Africa's resources, providing education, and providing the necessary food/etc until said education can take effect. Honestly though, the problem is that the majority don't give a rat's ass about Africa, and thus the people like me who do care are too few and far between to actually have an impact. But that"s "humanity" for you, most days I'm embarrassed to be human.. Cheers The evidence for malnutrition stunting neural development continues to pile on. Moreover, poverty, at least in Africa, could be stated mathematically as directly proportional to malnutrition. That is to say, if you are poor in Africa you are likely starving, severely under weight, homeless, and suffering from any manner of very preventable diseases. Cheers

^ I think you are misinterpreting the cannons and the catholic interpretation of the bible. Apparently Lamaitre the catholic priest and physicist who envisioned the big bang theory disagrees with you as well. You should read some of what - he - a catholic priest and scientist had to say on this issue. It falls inline more with what my friend believes and completely contradicts your interpretation. If a catholic priest can envision the big bang and still believe in god and also avoided excommunication then your perspective must be wrong. You may think it isn't sensible for someone to be religious and I personally think being an atheist makes even less sense. If you're going to have an opinion about something that cannot be explained at all - like the origin/purpose of the universe, why not have a positive one. Honestly, if one wants to be truly scientific, my position is the only logical position to take - which to clarify is the position that - I don't have a opinion one way or the other. God to me is like the concept of Alien life. It may or may not be out there (who knows) no point in deciding with insufficient evidence. Atheists and religious people are just different sides of the same coin. From my perspective neither of you are "sensible" from a scientific standpoint, but science isn't meant to explain the subjective and things like love, faith, and religion fall squarely in the realm of subjectivity - so good luck telling catholics that they aren't catholic if they accept evolution or the big bang theory.. I think you will find that many of them don't care much about your perspective of how they should interpret their religion and it's relevant texts.. "Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,” saying that evolution can coexist with faith. - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19956961/ns/world_news-europe/t/pope-creation-vs-evolution-clash-absurdity/ Sorry about the double post. Nacigating this site on the iPhone is not ideal and the connections is so slow that fixing the qbove is not worth it... Cheers

Hello, I contacted my colleague who is a biochemist and he contacted our other colleague - the food chemist - who is wary of giving advice about something like this online (mostly because it is possible to accidentally concentrate unwanted additives and consume them in unsafe amounts if the incorrect materials and/or procedures are used. I understand your predicament, thus I will see what I can do myself, but I think you should contact a custom chemical process startup company if possible (more on this later) Finding a way to recrystalize the amino acids is not as much of a problem as ensuring there are no impurities. Since you are going to be consuming this I think it would be prudent to triple check whatever procedure you use and if possible come up with a trusted source for all the materials you are planning to use, so that quality control can be ensured. The problem is you don't want to concentrate something that is typically meant to be an additive and slowly dose yourself with unacceptably high levels of said additive ( like preservatives, etc)... Another problem could be unforeseen impurities that end up in their product from packaging process etc that aren't harmful when the food products are being used for the designed purpose, but that over time, and perhaps during atypical use of the product - concentrate and become harmful.. Thus, I think - if you can afford it - you would be well served to take whatever method you decide on and run it by one of those small start-up custom chemical process companies. They may, for a cheap price, be able to help you work out a process that works for you, and provide you with quality suppliers. Many of these places do consulting for breweries, candy manufacturers, supplements, baking goods, you name it... If you contact someone like that, and they can't/won't help you I will do what I can.. but as I said before, unfortunately I am just a computational/green synthetic chemist - so not even in the same neighborhood as a food chemist, but I will do my best to help however I can.. For now I will throughly look over your proposed procedure above when I have time next week, and I will get back to you sometime this coming weekend.. Cheers