30 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Chemistry as the Foundation of Science
Chemistry I deem to be the foundation of all other science, and in a manner pf speaking to comprise all other branches of science. As matter and motion comprise everything we can behold or conceive, and as Chemistry is an investigation of the properties of matter, with the causes and effects of its various combinations, it is evidently the most important part of science, or rather, the first and last part of it. The cultivation of the earth—the cookery of our food—its quantity and quality... 1 
notes
notesAn early view, predates physics?
21 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Drugs is a Human Construct
The human body is an assembly of chemicals, as is all food & all medicine. So what we label as a drug is a social construct.
Lifting weights changes your bio-physiology in a way that creates performance-enhancing effects on your body.
Drinking coffee changes your metabolism in a way that creates performance-enhancing effects on your body.
Eating breakfast changes your biochemstry in a way that creates performance-enhancing effects on your body.
Practicing in your sport of choice creat... 1 notes
notesEveryone and every substance is chemicals and molecules. How we classify them is purely a social construct.
22 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Etymology of Chemistry Terms
Each of us has read somewhere that in New Guinea pidgin the word for 'piano' is (I use English spelling) 'this fellow you hit teeth belonging to him he squeal all same pig'. I am inclined to doubt whether this expression is authentic; it looks just like the kind of thing a visitor to the Islands would facetiously invent. But I accept 'cut grass belong head belong me' for 'haircut' as genuine... Such phrases seem very funny to us, and make us feel very superior to the ignorant foreigners who u... 1 notes
notesCompared to the etymology of "backwards" rural terms.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
An Egg is a Chemical Process
An egg is a chemical process, but it is not a mere chemical process. It is one that is going places—even when, in our world of chance and contingency, it ends up in an omelet and not in a chicken. Though it surely be a chemical process, we cannot understand it adequately without knowing the kind of chicken it has the power to become. 
1 But one with a long, complex history ahead of it.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Chemical Decline in Energy
It is the destiny of wine to be drunk, and it is the destiny of glucose to be oxidized. But it was not oxidized immediately: its drinker kept it in his liver for more than a week, well curled up and tranquil, as a reserve aliment for a sudden effort; an effort that he was forced to make the following Sunday, pursuing a bolting horse. Farewell to the hexagonal structure: in the space of a few instants the skein was unwound and became glucose again, and this was dragged by the bloodstream all t...Levi describes with wonder the chain of events leading to an increase in entropy as energy is used up in the body.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Sulfur Gains Weight When Burned
About eight days ago I discovered that sulfur in burning, far from losing weight, on the contrary, gains it; it is the same with phosphorus; this increase of weight arises from a prodigious quantity of air that is fixed during combustion and combines with the vapors. This discovery, which I have established by experiments, that I regard as decisive, has led me to think that what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain ...Folksonomies: chemistry experimentation
Folksonomies: chemistry experimentation
1 notes
notesQuoting Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Deducing the Original Arrangement of Chemicals
The chemists who uphold dualism are far from being agreed among themselves; nevertheless, all of them in maintaining their opinion, rely upon the phenomena of chemical reactions. For a long time the uncertainty of this method has been pointed out: it has been shown repeatedly, that the atoms put into movement during a reaction take at that time a new arrangement, and that it is impossible to deduce the old arrangement from the new one. It is as if, in the middle of a game of chess, after the ... 1 notes
notesFrom a compound is like trying to figure out the history of a chess game from the positions of the pieces on the board at present.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Chemicals "Copulate"
From this time everything was copulated. Acetic, formic, butyric, margaric, &c., acids, alkaloids, ethers, amides, anilides, all became copulated bodies. So that to make acetanilide, for example, they no longer employed acetic acid and aniline, but they re-copulated a copulated oxalic acid with a copulated ammonia. I am inventing nothing—altering nothing. Is it my fault if, when writing history, I appear to be composing a romance? 1 notes
notesMaking it sound natural, so the chemist describes his work as composing a romance for the elements' natural affinity for one another.
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
On the Future of Chemistry
Chemistry is not the preservation hall of old jazz that it sometimes looks like. We cannot know what may happen tomorrow. Someone may oxidize mercury (II), francium (I), or radium (II). A mineral in Nova Scotia may contain an unsaturated quark per 1020 nucleons. (This is still 6000 per gram.) We may pick up an extraterrestrial edition of Chemical Abstracts. The universe may be a 4-dimensional soap bubble in an 11-dimensional space as some supersymmetry theorists argued in May of 1983. Who kno...Folksonomies: chemistry
Folksonomies: chemistry
1 notes
notesThe science has a nebulous future to predict owing to the engineering and experimental nature of its character.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Benzene and Bee Hives
People have wracked their brains for an explanation of benzene and how the celebrated man [Kekulé] managed to come up with the concept of the benzene theory. With regard to the last point especially, a friend of mine who is a farmer and has a lively interest in chemistry has asked me a question which I would like to share with you. My 'agricultural friend' apparently believes he has traced the origins of the benzene theory. 'Has Kekulé,' so ran the question, 'once been a bee-keeper? You cer... 1 notes
notesThe hexagon shape of bee hives inspires the idea of hexagon shapes for benzene rings.
