farmboy

I don't think that would be all that beneficial to be honest dude, and I don't really think that learning nomenclature like a language would be all that wise either unfortunately (thoughit is good to see people thinking outsude the box). Whilst it might seem very complicated to begin with, learning the 'language' of chemistry is not anywhere near as tough as learning a new regular language. More importantly learning the words that represent the different molecules is actually not all that important, it is the chemical features that these words indicate that is the important part. Once you understand the basic chemistry of the different atoms you will be able to know intuitively how the molecules are put together. You will probably start off learning how some of the basic functional groups tend to react under different conditions, but just memorising reactions in that fashion won't be very useful in the long run unlike say learning french. With chemistry you will need to understand why the functional groups act the way they do, and once you have done that there is no need to just memorise you will just know how a reaction is likely to proceed. And with regards to the periodic table of functional groups, that wouldn't really work in my opinion. The periodic table contains all the elements arranged in order of increasing mass, but actually for chemists it tells us a hell of a lot more than that. There are trends and patterns of behaviour amongst the elements, and the periodic table allows us to make guesses about how elements will behave just from looking at their position.

I'm only going back to start my masters in chemistry in september after a year out (unsuccessfully searching for gainful employment lol) and so couldn't really comment on any prejudices in industry or what have you, but I will say that I don't think theres any point in getting your phd (which I intend to do) unless you genuinely want a career in research. If you do then its certainly worth doing, however if you aren't concerned with the actual science and just want to work in the pharma industry then it probably wont offer too much.

What exactly is the problem. I got it downloaded and installed even though im windows 7 64 bit which didnt appear to support it. I can get it running and can get a basic s orbital up that i can seemingly change by putting in new values etc. but havent spent too much time looking around. Not really sure how i can help at the moment though mate.

Do you mean atoms in molecules vibrate all the time, and so could you get them to vibrate with a high enough frequency that it would essentially move at c, or that atoms within a molecule sometimes move to another place in the molecule etc. Or do you perhaps even mean diffusion of atoms in a solid lattice at c?

Your problem here is that you should never really be looking at NaCl as a discrete molecule, it needs to be examined as part of the lattice it exists in. Even though the net charge of a molecule of NaCl would be 0, each of the constituent atoms is really a seperate charged entity that will bond to 6 atoms of opposite charge aruond it creating a lattice. TBH, I'm not really 100% on what you're asking here. What specific reactions are you talking about when you say that they can't go ahead with an excited electron? I think your problem may stem from the fact that you are using a very simplified version of the atom. When you are considering bonding from a quantum mechanical view point, there are significantly more factors to take into account than simply the number of electrons in the outer shell. The concept of the outer shell even becomes irrelevant. Sorry, that explanation probably doesn't help you very much. It's not important for an atom to have a full shell, its only important that you know it 'prefers' to have a full shell. The reason it likes to have a full shell is because that configuration is the lowest energy configuration and so is the most stable. You may or may not know that (in simple terms) all systems are constantly striving to have as little energy as possible. This is an extremely important concept in chemistry,

Oh yeah definitely pal, creating more efficent ways of harnesing energy is very lucrative not to mention important

As you say in your first post, this is literally impossible, so really no idea was ever going to be good lol. I suppose it teaches us something anyway. That what feels right to us, what I suppose you might call our intuition, often lets us down when it comes to matters such as these, highlighting the need for solid empirical data.

No way to tell by guessing, it may make it up to the top a few times may never, the important part is that you would never be getting out more energy than you put in.

Yeah exactly, theres no problem getting the ball down to the bottom, but it just woudn't make it all the way up to the top. You see basically when the ball is at the top it has a certain amount of gravitational potential energy. As it moves down the track that energy is converted into kinetic energy which in turn is converted into elastic energy in the spring mechanism. Now for the system to work, all of the balls gpe would have to end up as elastic energy in the spring, so that when the spring pulls it back up the ball is returned to its original position and hence original gpe. Unfortunately that will not happen. Not all of the energy will make it to be stored in the spring, some will be lost through heat, friction etc. and so the system will eventually lose its energy.

Energy would be lost from the system all over the place. Frictional forces in particular will cause energy to leak from the system as the cord extends and the ball rolls. Also I'm not sure about this but it seems that if the ball is heavy enough to pull the string down, it might be too heavy to be pulled back up.

Wouldn't work unfortunately, the ball wouldn't make it back up.

A unified theory of everything.

Yes, it is literally impossible. With the mouse example you put the enrgy in in the first place to stretch the cord out. It is stored as elastic energy in a spring or something, then released to pull the cord back in at a certain point.

Lol, was going to post something similar. Such a reaction could solve all the worlds energy needs.

Are you asking, would that be a good way to create a perpetual motion machine?

Reading back, I think I was wrong to mention the natural vibrational frequency, wasn't quite sober at the time. I think perhaps that has something more to do with the vibration of solid lattices. Basically the frequency that the lattice will naturally vibrate at, and so by matching that frequency you can get a sort of chain reaction where the frequency and velocity of the standing wave (sorry not sure about terminology don't know a lot of physics) increases rapidly keeping the wavelength the same, meaning the total energy of the vibrations increases massively. This is how opera singers can smash glasses I think. I suppose the water example is like the quantum analog of this. I'm thinking now that with the water the important part is the fact that the water molecule is best able to absorb photons with energy levels that fall within the microwave band. Once the molecule is excited like this it will want to lose energy again, and can do so in a number of ways (I think this was mentioned previously). One of these ways would be to increase the frequency of vibration, which would inturn heat the food up.

Thanks very much for your suggestions. I'll look into them all.

Firstly, apologies if this is only the most recent in a long line of threads all asking virtually the same question, it wasn't my intention to be repetitive. A cursory glance around the forum didn't really give me what I was looking for, and so I felt it wise to put my query to the community. Basically I am looking for books. Books that can take me from someone with only a very basic level of Physics knowledge, up to someone who at least knows the basics of the theories at the forefront of our knowledge, even if I will never be able to practice them myself. I have only an undergraduate degree in chemistry so far, and so understand the basic principles of quantum mechanics (including QED) and how they relate to chemistry. Aside from that my knowedge is poor. I really don't know much about relativity, string theory etc. and how they all fit together, So I suppose my question is, could any one help me with a book or series of books, that can take my knoweldge from where it is now, to where I want it to be. Thanks in advance, Farmyard

Sorry, not really sure what your theory is really saying. Needs a more concise explanation, or a summary. To me it seems that you are suggesting that if you were to kill someone in a manner that caused them no pain and ensured that they never knew they were dying it would be fine basically because humans aren't immortal. If that is the case I have to disagree. The fact is that humans are more than their genetic programming. In deciding what someone does with their life there's no good reason that DNA should have precedence over us. People have the right to do what they want with their lives, including carrying on living, and if you were to kill them you would be infringing on their rights.

I can only really echo what the poster above has said. In biochemistry there shouldn't be too much maths at all, nothing too complex anyway, though my degree is only in normal chemistry, so it could just be that I didn't come across it. Either way though, I would say don't let the possibility of facing maths put you off doing the subject if it's what you want to do, even if you suck at it you can go on to work in areas where it isn't important. On the other hand, I would also say definitely don't pick the subject based only on what job you want to do afterwards, make sure to pick soemthing that you actually enjoy as that makes sure you remain interested and makes it more likely that you'll be successful. Originally I was going to do biochemistry, but decided on regular at the last moment, and I'm very glad I did. Bio seemed interesting from the outside, but when I actually started to learn about it I found it boring compared to physical and inorganic chem. And yeah the best advice I could give you is make sure to learn as you go along don't leave it to the last moment thinking you can cram it all in (something I always did) and something I never did would also be a good idea, that is reading up on topics in advance of lectures and also reading a little more just outside the scope of the lecture to give you a more comprehensive knowledge.

In any wave you can calculate the frequency and wavelength quite easily, using velocity=frequency x wavelength. Since the velocity of light is constant, that means that as the wavelength increases the frequency decreases. The frequency is directly related to the energy by the formula frequency=energy/plancks constant, so yes it is true that at lower wavelengths the frequency of the wave is lower and the energy is higher. I don't think thats particularly important in this case though. The important part (I'm guessing) is that the frequency of microwaves is somewhere in the region of the natural vibrational frequency of water, which causes it to vibrate massively where visible light wouldn't. This vibration increases the temp of the whole food since food is largely water.

In such a system only a tiny number of the water molecues will have dissosciated, so the reaction does lie heavily in favour of H2O. However, even though most of the water remains water due to the high energy barrier, every now and again a molecule will get the energy it needs to dissosciate. In this instance you have to remember that the equilibrium reached will involve the atmosphere etc. In a completely closed system, any energy given out as bonds are broken etc. will remain in the system, just in another form. The total energy of the closed system would be a constant.

Interesting essay, although I disagree with its sentiment. I don't really see how one can make the jump from quantum uncertainty to initial conditions of the universe. I am also uneasy with the application of quantum mechanical principles to a large, complex system such as the human mind.

Thats very interesting.

electronegativity.