It's like science!

[sarren]

Next semester one of my units is Introduction to Chemistry. I have NO science background, so I’m pretty daunted. Someone told me that if I could learn the periodic table by rote, that’d be a big help. I wonder if I’m supposed to know what number on the table they each are. I really, really hope that doesn’t include their atomic weights or I’m doomed.

SO, from now on I’m going to learn three each morning, along with something interesting about them, hopefully. And then the next morning I’m going to put it on my LJ. Or, you know, my SHAME if I’ve forgotten.

This is going to be thrilling for everyone else, I know. However, feel free to randomly challenge me on anything I claim to have learnt, and watch me flounder. That’ll be amusing.


I started yesterday by randomly picking three, but have now decided it would be much less stupid to learn them in their approximate categories.

Te – Tellurium. A crystal. If you absorb even a little you will smell like garlic for month.

Cf – Californium. A neutron source, used to find precious metals.

Sr – Strontium. People think it’s radioactive because it’s in fallout. Used in glow in the dark paint.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The big fancy radioactive/bottom of the chart ones are the least important ones, unless you are doing something specifically to do with radioactivity. For basic chemistry, I'd start at the right and the left and work inwards, with the caveats that you don't need to learn very much at all about the rightmost column (just that they are inert gases), the second from the right column is the important one. Often, the most important single thing to remember is what column of the table something is in (things in the same column tend to have similar chemical properties) -- and learning the structure of the whole thing is kind of what you are after, rather than every single element.

In fact, if you learn the two leftmost columns and the 6 rightmost and remember that everything in the middle is a metal that you can look up, you'll do fine.

And I doubt you'll ever really hit lanthanides or actinides or anything with an attomic number higher than 88 in basic chemistry. However, learning trivia about elements is always fine, and many of the ones with really high atomic numbers have interesting naming controversies.

Strontium 90, which is the isotope in fallout, is indeed rather radioactive, though I think it is a beta emitter rather than gamma.

Disclaimer - I last did chemistry a long time ago, and I've never done chem at university (though I have done units that required it, such as physiology).

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent. THANK YOU.

[victorian-tweed.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I'll look forward to your posts.

Also, Tom Lehrer is your friend! Here's his song The Elements

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SmwlzwGMMwc&feature=related

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Hee! Finally got to watch that yesterday morning. And Bunny was there which meant we watched it half a dozen times in a row. And then I had to explain about breast enlargements.

It's great. We have a new song to attempt to learn together. :)

[victorian-tweed.livejournal.com]

Excllent! I'll look forward to a recital next time I visit! :-D

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Which will be soon? *looks hopeful*

I haven't forgotten your BoG story, you know. I have to wait til I'm inspired though.

[victorian-tweed.livejournal.com]

I wish it could be soon! I am busting to come over again.

oooh BoG story! May the muse visit at some stage that is convenient to you. I'm a patient old possum. *hugs*

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Chemistry is fun and interesting and I will cheerfully babble at you for hours about it if you wants...

Also, your learn something interesting plan is brilliant!

[sarren.livejournal.com]

*looks scared but hopeful*

Slowly, and using small words, right?

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Yups, I'll draw pretty pictures and wave my hands about too!

[sarren.livejournal.com]

*deadpan*

I have no doubt.

[ddpm.livejournal.com]

you will be fine with your new unit. I hope evrything will go well with you, and for your exams.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

I don't know why anyone would want to learn the periodic table by wrote, though, as mentioned already, Tom Lehrer has that covered.

As Dave said, it's the columns elements are in and how they relate to each other that's important. The common ones are early in the table, the rare ones are in the middle and the weird ones that are only made in labs for short periods of time are at the bottom.

Also, many of the relationships are things you may know, or know bits of, already. Copper, silver and gold are related, being good electrical conductors. They all prefer not to react with other elements, gold being the least reactive of all. Fluorine is a highly reactive gas and its friends down the column are similar. Lithium, sodium and potassium are the elements which are fun to throw into water. (See youtube for examples.)

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Awesome thanks!

Is there NOTHING youtube isn't useful for?

[neery.livejournal.com]

WHAT? I just actually sat up in bed and flailed in horror at the fact that anyone would make you learn the periodic table by rote. In every single chemistry class I've ever been in, you were allowed to have the periodic table with you during tests, which is the only thing that makes sense, because it doesn't MATTER that you know by rote what, for example, the atomic weight of an atom is. It matters that you know what it means, and how it fits into your formula. If your teachers seriously expect you to know that nonsense by heart, you need to HIT THEM WITH A HAMMER FOR ME.

Even in med school, where they are insane about making me learn stuff I will never ever need again, they told me the atomic weight of the atoms when I needed them for a calculation.

Some actually important things to know: The atoms on the left and in the middle of the table are metals, the ones on the right side are not. What defines an atom is how many protons it has - the number of neutrons can vary. That makes it extra useless to learn the atomic weights, because the same atom can have different weights.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm sure they won't make me know all that, but never having done FORMULAS before I'm now staring at you wide eyed in horror.

Randomly, as you are sitting up in bed flailing, it is 3pm on a Friday here and I am at work staring wistfully out the window at the blue sky on this lovely winter's day.

*SIGH*

[pionie.livejournal.com]

Was just going to concur with the people that said it's all about the columns, baby! Plus metals vs nonmetals and numbers of protons.

I had to do A Level (don't know what your equiv is!) chemistry and biology in a year to get entrance onto the degree I'm doing, having always run away screaming from all things sciency. I was in a state of perpetual terror, but I did well in the end. So if I can do it then anyone can! Go you!

[sarren.livejournal.com]

I know you meant to be reassuring but the words I'm focussing on are "screaming" and "terror".

*g*

[mcicioni.livejournal.com]

A suggestion from someone who failed high school chemistry. In your nearest public library, find or request The Periodic Table by Primo Levi. If I could only take 3 books to a desert island, this one would be among my three. Levi was an chemist as well as a writer, and the stories in this book are about his life, and other lives, seen through association or contact with Mendeleev's elements.

Two examples: Levi's Northern Italian Jewish ancestors are described as "noble, inert and rare", just like inert gases, such as argon. Chromium, which may cause paints to solidify, becomes a symbol of a gradual return to life after deportation.

Please let me know if you cannot find a copy, I will send you one as a present.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Hey thanks! My uni library has it, along with a heap of other stuff by the same author. I'll get it out when I'm next over there :)

[psycho-tabby.livejournal.com]

I used to love chemistry, but its hard remembering it all when you haven't used it for awhile. *dredges up memories*

Just to follow on with what everyone else has said, its the overall structure of the table that is important. It lets you know the kind of chemical properties of the elements.

As I understand it things in the same column are usually pretty similar chemically. Like all the right hand side column elements are inert as they have a complete electron shell and therefore don't want anything off anybody (He, Ne, Ar etc). The elements just to the left of them (F, Cl, etc) are just one electron short of being complete and are therefore really reactive as they are so close to being complete and will want to grab an electron off anything that passes by and when they have done that will have a negative charge. The elements in the left hand column (Li, Na, K etc) have one extra electron that they want to get rid of so I think you will often get them to combine quite easily with the F, Cl etc column to form things like salt NaCl.

I do remember that it may be a good idea to remember some of the weights of the elements as you do have to use them in the practical chem, at least the common ones like Carbon and Oxygen and Hydrogen (easy! *grin*) and Sulfur. It will just save you time on those ones that you need to know a lot.

Good luck!

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Hee. I have no idea what you said but it sounds interesting. Which kinda makes me wonder if I've actually been replaced by a pod person.