It was time for the final and the student depending upon getting at least one right answer on the chemistry test.
The question was “If h20 if water, what is h204?”
This was a quick question for most, but it took the student some thinking time.
Finally, he wrote down his answer: For drinking, washing, and cleaning.
Total immersion geologists
Total immersion geologists: Are you totally obsessed with geology? If so, then you are a total immersion geologist. Here are the ten warning signs:
1. You judge a restaurant by the type of decorative building stone they use rather than their food.
2. You manage to turn any conversation into a discussion of geology, as in: “What did you think of that Superbowl game last night?”"I must have missed that conference. Who sponsored it? Geological Society of America?”
3. You refuse to let nightfall stop your field excursions and continue looking at the outcrops using the headlights of your field vehicle.
4. You like rock music only because it’s called “rock” music.
5. You will try to claw through the water flowing in a stream to get a better look at the bedrock at the base of the channel.
6. You will walk across eight lanes of freeway traffic to see if the outcrop on the other side of the highway is the same type of rock as the side you’re parked on.
7. You name your children after rocks and minerals.
8. You’re not sure if you have children.
9. You view non-geologists as subhuman.
THE LAST WORD
The Ultimate Scientific Dictionary
Activation Energy: The useful quantity of energy available in one cup of coffee.
Atomic Theory: A mythological explanation of the nature of matter, first proposed by the ancient Greeks, and now thoroughly discredited by modern computer simulation. Attempts to verify the theory by modern computer simulation have failed. Instead, it has been demonstrated repeatedly that computer outputs depend upon the color of the programmer’s eyes, or occasionally upon the month of his or her birth. This apparent astrological connection, at last, vindicates the alchemist’s view of astrology as the mother of all science.
Bacon, Roger: An English friar who dabbled in science and made experimentation fashionable. Bacon was the first science popularizer to make it big on the banquet and talk-show circuit, and his books even outsold the fad diets of the period.
Biological Science: A contradiction in terms.
Bunsen Burner: A device invented by Robert Bunsen (1811-1899) for brewing coffee in the laboratory, thereby enabling the chemist to be poisoned without having to go all the way to the company cafeteria.
Butyl: An unpleasant-sounding word denoting an unpleasant-smelling alcohol.
CAI: Acronym for “Computer-Aided Instruction”. The modern system of training professional scientists without ever exposing them to the hazards and expense of laboratory work. Graduates of CAI-based programs are very good at simulated research.
Cavendish: A variety of pipe tobacco that is reputed to produce remarkably clear thought processes, and thereby leads to major scientific discoveries; hence, the name of a British research laboratory where the tobacco is smoked in abundance.
Chemical: A substance that:
1. An organic chemist turns into a foul odor;
2. an analytical chemist turns into a procedure;
3. a physical chemist turns into a straight line;
4. a biochemist turns into a helix;
5. a chemical engineer turns into a profit.
Chemical Engineering: The practice of doing for a profit what an organic chemist only does for fun.
Chromatography: (From Gr. chromo [color] graphos [writing]) The practice of submitting manuscripts for publication with the original figures drawn in non-reproducing blue ink.
Clinical Testing: The use of humans as guinea pigs. (See also PHARMACOLOGY and TOXICOLOGY)
Compound: To make worse, as in: 1) A fracture; 2) the mutual adulteration of two or more elements.
Computer Resources: The major item of any budget, allowing for the acquisition of any capital equipment that is obsolete before the purchase request is released.
Eigen Function: The use to which an eigen is put.
En: The universal bidentate ligand used by coordination chemists. For years, efforts were made to use ethylene-diamine for this purpose, but chemists were unable to squeeze all the letters between the corners of the octahedron diagram. The timely invention of en in 1947 revolutionized the science.
Evaporation Allowance: The volume of alcohol that the graduate students can drink in a year’s time.
Exhaustive Methylation: A marathon event in which the participants methylate until they drop from exhaustion.
First Order Reaction: The reaction that occurs first, not always the one desired. For example, the formation of brown gunk in an organic prep.
Flame Test: Trial by fire. Genetic Engineering: A recent attempt to formalize what engineers have been doing informally all along.
Grignard: A fictitious class of compounds often found on organic exams and never in real life.
Inorganic Chemistry: That which is left over after the organic, analytical, and physical chemists get through picking over the periodic table.
Mercury: (From L. Mercurius, the swift messenger of the gods) Element No. 80, so named because of the speed of which one of its compounds (calomel, Hg2Cl2) goes through the human digestive tract. The element is perhaps misnamed, because the gods probably would not be pleased by the physiological message so delivered.
Monomer: One mer. (Compare POLYMER).
Natural Product: A substance that earns organic chemists fame and glory when they manage to systhesize it with great difficulty, while Nature gets no credit for making it with great ease.
Organic Chemistry: The practice of transmuting vile substances into publications.
Partition Function: The function of a partition is to protect the lab supervisor from shrapnel produced in laboratory explosions.
Pass/Fail: An attempt by professional educators to replace the traditional academic grading system with a binary one that can be handled by a large digital computer.
Pharmacology: The use of rabbits and dogs as guinea pigs. (See also CLINICAL TESTING, TOXICOLOGY).
Physical Chemistry: The pitiful attempt to apply y=mx b to everything in the universe.
Pilot Plant: A modest facility used for confirming design errors before they are built into a costly, full-scale production facility.#p#
Silver Nitrate
(to the tune of “Silver Bells”)
Silver nitrate, silver nitrate
it’s chemistry time in the lab
Ding-a-ling, with a copper ring
soon it will be chemistry day.
Take your nitrate, in solution
Add your copper with style
In the beaker there’s a feeling of reactions
silver forming, blue solution
Bringing ooh’s ah’s and wows
now the data procesing begins.
Get the mass, change to moles
what is the ratio with copper?
Write an equation, balance it
we’re glad it’s Chemistry Day.
CHEMISTRY RHYMES
Old Man Stokes
Old man Stokes was a gentleman fine
Who lived beside the Raleigh line;
Old anti-Stokes, his existance denied,
Lived never-the-less on the other side.
At a press conference the Brunettes announce they are going to make a trip to the Moon. The Redheads speak up “That’s been done before, we’re going to go to Mars”. The Blondes speak up “That’s nothing, we’re going to be the first people to go to the Sun”. One of the reporters says “Don’t you idiots know that you’ll burn up?” The Blondes say “NO WE WON’T; WE’RE GOING TO GO AT NIGHT!”