What I learned in General Chemistry II

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

This post was coming for some time, but I had to wait for the semester to end before I can fully collect everything. This post is strictly about what I learned from lecture. Lab will have a separate post:

What I learned in General Chemistry II (lecture):

—”Kinetics is not something edible.”

—”Rate laws. There is more than one.”

—I need more than one banana or soy milk to get through general chemistry II.

—For 90% of the class, doing the homework consists of reading our professor’s solutions and nodding in agreement. Me and two other people actually do the stupid problems.

—I still cannot do 100+ problem

—After a full year of general chemistry, I still don’t know the difference between a molecule and a compound.

—There is a K (equilibrium expression) for every letter in the alphabet. (Ex. Ka, Kb, Kc, Kp, Ksp, Kf, etc)

—If pH=pKa, then everything is somehow okay.

—Chemistry IS a philosophy.

—My professor is like a carbon atom in a molecule/compound–if he is not happy, NO ONE is happy….

—Apparently, if a metal is with an ion, things get more ‘complex’…. (Complex ions)

—People like catalysts more than heat. (Faith786: Just microwave it and everything should be okay!)

—Weird things happen at high pHs

—Apparently, “Gen chem and organic chem are different religions. You can’t believe in both of them at the same time.” -anonymous

—If an equation is named after someone, it somehow makes it more important.

—Faith786′s laws of thermodynamics: Things get worse under more pressure.

—Never judge a molecule by how it is drawn.

—For some reason, it is always better to be more polar….

—The term ‘spontaneous’ is treated like a swear word in class.

—Faith786′s laws of thermodynamics: No matter what, heat increases so we are all screwed.

—Nuclear chemistry should be taught in a physics class.

—Math will always trump chemistry even if it is completely counter-intuitive.

—If doesn’t make sense in lecture, it sure won’t make any sense in lab.

—Chemistry is a social construct. I mean, every test question is a ‘defend’ or ‘refute’–nothing is in absolutes.

—Gibbs free energy equation tells some deep inner truth about the human soul. I just don’t know what it is yet.

—Manganese and platinum have a special place in my professor’s heart.

—My professor can eliminate the whole universe by introducing water into the equation.

—Protons are shot callers. They don’t need to follow chemistry to do whatever it wants.

—In nuclear chemistry, there is no difference between 2,4 He and 2,4 He 2+

—Chemistry professors have interesting marker holding habits.

—Either you have to change chemistry to fit your mind or you have to change yourself to make chemistry make sense.

—In gen chem, lewis bond theory is a load of crap and yet only with that theory will organic chemistry make sense.

—Thermodynamics and equilibrium is like a video game. When delta G hits zero in a person, the person dies.

—Electrochemistry in a nutshell: if you throw a lithium battery operated car off a bridge into a lake, it will blow up.

…more later….