hermanntrude

this post is just because i can't remember what i've got and can't be bothered to go find another post of mine

true, true. To be fair, though, I didn't actually suggest it, I merely questioned whether it would work.

check your textbook's chapter on intermolecular bonds.

systematic would be predictable. The whole point is to make sure the students dont know who's next so they attempts to think about the answer in case they're selected. and random DOES ensure they're selected evenly. the program has a built-in plotter and after 30 or 40 questions a class of 15 gets selected fairly evenly Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedone of our instructors is piloting clickers now. Ive already told them i want them

a very scientific attitude, ACM. it's true we shouldn't want to win all arguments, although there are times you'll forget that and want to win anyway :0) It's usually when you think you're right.

roller coasters never lift off the track because they're designed not to. I hate unrealistic questions

is that what it's called? hehe no i wouldnt advise it, i guess Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedactually it's not a cheddite until you add a nitro-organic as well. Nevertheless it could be fairly dangerous stuff... perhaps it'd ignite TOO fast

how about mixing it with potassium chlorate to provide the oxygen?

there are ways but they aren't simple or cheap or safe.

my early results really do seem to be promising. I am concerned, though that it might not work as a device that's there from the start. My students have been taught chemistry by me for the last year... they're used to my ways and tolerant of my nerd-dom. Perhaps if i start using it next year as soon as i meet the new students they might (a) take it for granted (b) not find it so amusing as my current students

no. It won't work. magnesium is cheap and plentiful anyway. why bother? get a metal pencil sharpener or buy some magnesium ribbon.

i'm very nice about it. If you can't get it i'll help you out. I've managed to write a macro now which takes the attendance data and stores it in a table. It works beautifully.

The students find it slightly amusing that i'm that much of a nerd. I'm not sure if they noticed the subtle psychological change in the room. It seems to me it works nicely. It's a good job i'm even more of a nerd than that, though: Just because I wanted to find out if I could, i decided to make my randomiser report every result to a frequency chart and then set it to run for a while to test the randomosity of it. It turned out that the first and last student in any list was being chosen half as many times due to the rounding function. I changed it to "INT" instead, which always rounds down, and it's better. I've also developed a function on another sheet in the same workbook, where thereare checkboxes next to each student's name so I can tell the randomiser who is and who isn't there so it won't choose absent people (that was a bit of a bodge... basically i told it to calculate a new name if it came up as "absent", and repeated the function twenty times, but it works). Now that I have the checkboxes, i'm thinking i could add a button which would report that day's attendance into another sheet which would record attendance. This is turning out to be difficult.

your products shouldnt be green at all, i think. you might (but shouldnt really) expect some green to appear with copper, but not sodium carbonate. Sodium compounds are usually colourless

concerning sarcasm, on an old forum I used to frequent, we had a font colour known as "sarcastic purple".

also any iodide salt would work as a catalyst

anyway, back to the subject... dating chemists is an awesome choice. Chemists are great. experiment with a chemist chemists provide solutions

I already had a publication when I applied for my PhD. I think that helped a lot. Also I looked almost exactly like my supervisor's son :0)

I've edited it twice, each time on minor factoidal stuff within a larger article. I have great respect for wikipedia. Particularly for know scientific information it's awesome. I wouldn't use it for looking up anything too controversial, since the chances are the article would change on an hourly basis.

I have made a small excel spreadsheet which randomly generates a number between 1 and 15 (the number of students in one of my classes), then it looks up the name next to that number in the class list and displays it in large (200pt) text so the whole class can see it. I wrote a small macro and attached it to a button so that when I press the button it randomises a few times so names flicker in the display area and then stops on a particular name. The reason for this is like this: As an instructor, a useful method of divining exactly what students know is to ask questions in class. The reccomended method is to ask the question, wait, and then single someone out... that way everyone thinks about how to answer the question in case it's them who gets chosen. The trouble with that is that there is a certain amount of negative feeling involved in the selection process... particularly if the class thinks you picked someone "unfairly". Now, with the randomizer, I can't be blamed for the choices, and when someone gets a question they find hard, I'm the one who helps them out... in other words, my influences are positive more than negative. i'm very proud [/boast]

generally I find the best way to approach a titration problem (unless it's one designed to be confusing) is a three step process 1) find the moles of titrant using c=n/v 2) do some stoichiometry based on the equation (figure the equation out first if you have to) 3) find the moles or concentration of your original sample using c=n/v sometimes there are additional steps like finding the mass of the original sample or finding the purity of a sample you dissolved to titrate or something like that.

inuhbad, I'm sorry to say that I was totally joking about the calcium carbide. I suspect if you tried to electrolyse it'd catch fire or something. Patrick was, of course speaking about diamonds when said "crystalline carbon" and of course you can't make those using electrolysis

yes [editorial note: Hermann is feeling sarcastic today]

it was. I am a succint writer so my intro was short, and the results included the first unambiguous molecular rectifier... a communication which was the most accessed one on the RSC website for five months running, which had never been done before... They couldnt argue with that :0)

Mine was in nanomaterials, and was 84 pages long, double spaced. My peers and examiners were concerned that it didnt seem long enough so i told them i thought it was just fine. In my viva they told me to write another chapter. I did... it was 1 paragraph long. It passed