Friday, August 6, 2010

Chemistry Can Be Funny

I was looking through some old lab notebooks from college, and I was noticing that I logged my experiments with...flair. I thought it would be amusing to share with you some of the gems I wrote in there! Keep in mind that this is exactly like I wrote it originally in the lab books...smiley faces, exclamation points, and all.

  • My percent yield is going to be dismal. A few crystals are forming, but for the most part it isn't working out so well. Nothing came out when I hirsched it! :( Starting over...
  • The reaction mixture is a nice color this time.
  • I removed the aqueous layer. For some reason this layer was on the bottom...weird.
  • I keep washing and washing and washing with methylene chloride...
  • I have product! Plenty of product!
  • I know my product was pretty darn pure because my melting point was great!
  • It looked white. Really white.
  • Meso-stilbene dibromide! :)
  • Lo and behold, it decomposed!
  • It looked pure. No weird colors, etc. The end!
  • 0.023 g product. DISMAL.
  • (A messed up reaction mechanism) This is what I get for writing in pen...The REAL one: (the right reaction mechanism) I win!
  • My alternate procedure yielded brown junk. I suspect failure...
  • I made diphenylacetylene! Here's how I know:...It tastes like diphenylacetylene (just kidding!)
  • I could have recrystallized it, but I am lazy.

I'll post more later!

6 comments:

The Miguel Family said...

love it! Oh I sure do miss those days!

magnolia said...

hahaha - love it. my favorite lab report from high-school chem definitely involved the words "margarita ice cream." we did an ice-cream project in chem II, and because my lab group was the two rebellious dancer girls who had no business being in chem II (me and my friend) paired with the hottest guy in the class, we decided to be total snots and make margarita flavored ice cream, complete with margarita glasses. oh, the administration had a field day with us.

Anna W said...

Magnolia-The best chemistry involves ice cream. When I used to work for the chemistry department we used to get liquid nitrogen all the time and make ourselves ice cream...my favorite was made with crumbled up Pop-Tarts.

Ange-I miss those days, when you and I were taking the same lab classes...213 was AWFUL.

Gillian O'Daniel said...

I love this in a pink fuzzy heart kind of way. Hilarious!

Alison said...

I love this. I bounce between making my lab teacher regret the day he took the job to being his prodigy. There is no in between.

And boo! to everyone that made ice cream in chem class. I made ferrofluids! So not the same thing...:(

Anna W said...

Ferrofluids could be tasty...or...something...