Sciencemadness Discussion Board
Not logged in [Login ]
Go To Bottom

Printable Version  
 Pages:  1    3
Author: Subject: Advice for a 15 year old interested in amateur chemistry?
Rhodanide
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 348
Registered: 23-7-2015
Location: The 80s
Member Is Offline

Mood: That retro aesthetic

[*] posted on 15-11-2017 at 10:16


Quote: Originally posted by Diachrynic  
Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  

*shakes head*, Why, when I was your age....

If you're fifteen, or in high school, fine- just give it time.

If you're an adult, then get online. There's dozens of dating sites- as long as you're honest in your description of yourself, the internet can connect you to people who may find you interesting. You're a scientist- you need a sample size of much larger than three before declaring that no women could ever be interested in you.


Oh, I never said that no women could ever be interested in me. In fact, I established a relationship three times (which are the three times I mentioned).
However, none of those relationships were lasting. And getting rejected three times is... well, really discouraging.

It's the first one by the way.

Thank you for cheering me up. I am afraid though derailing the thread into off-topic-territory...


Three times? If that's the case, you're thrice as confident as I am. Kudos!




View user's profile View All Posts By User
gdflp
Super Moderator
Thread Split
16-11-2017 at 13:37
gdflp
Super Moderator
Thread Split
16-11-2017 at 13:58
gdflp
Super Moderator
*******




Posts: 1320
Registered: 14-2-2014
Location: NY, USA
Member Is Offline

Mood: Staring at code

[*] posted on 16-11-2017 at 14:05


Let's keep this thread on topic everyone.

<b>Quaff</b>, don't continue to post off-topic nonsense after I've already pruned the thread.




View user's profile View All Posts By User
DraconicAcid
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 4333
Registered: 1-2-2013
Location: The tiniest college campus ever....
Member Is Offline

Mood: Semi-victorious.

[*] posted on 16-11-2017 at 14:12


When I was in high school, I was turned down by every girl I asked out. I had a girlfriend in my first year of college, and dated a few others (once or twice each- no more) over the course of the rest of my undergrad. In my grad studies, I had a few relationships that lasted a few months each, and long gaps between them. Got married, now divorced, and am still amazed at how easy it is to meet women online, even in a small town such as mine. Okay, it's not really easy, but compared to the years of my youth.....

My point? I don't have one- I'm just shaking my cane at you young punks, not knowing how good you've got it....




Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
gdflp
Super Moderator
Thread Split
16-11-2017 at 14:18
aga
Forum Drunkard
*****




Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 16-11-2017 at 14:36


LOL.

The fact that an offshoot of a simple request for information went off to Detritus is awesome.

Get a Life people, maybe do some Chemistry perhaps ?

(yes, i know i haven't done enough recently)




View user's profile View All Posts By User
VSEPR_VOID
National Hazard
****




Posts: 719
Registered: 1-9-2017
Member Is Offline

Mood: Fullerenes

[*] posted on 16-11-2017 at 15:53


Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid  
When I was in high school, I was turned down by every girl I asked out. I had a girlfriend in my first year of college, and dated a few others (once or twice each- no more) over the course of the rest of my undergrad. In my grad studies, I had a few relationships that lasted a few months each, and long gaps between them. Got married, now divorced, and am still amazed at how easy it is to meet women online, even in a small town such as mine. Okay, it's not really easy, but compared to the years of my youth.....

My point? I don't have one- I'm just shaking my cane at you young punks, not knowing how good you've got it....


I know that feel bro

Funny-bored-chemist-at-party-comic.jpg - 73kB




Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Texium
Administrator
********




Posts: 4581
Registered: 11-1-2014
Location: Salt Lake City
Member Is Online

Mood: PhD candidate!

[*] posted on 16-11-2017 at 17:07


Heh. I'm not usually one to make long personal posts, but here goes nothing.

Although I've been interested in chemistry as long as I can remember, I started getting into amateur chemistry for real when I was 15, after my first relationship ended in a really drawn out and unpleasant way. It felt like several additional friends betrayed me around that time and I suddenly found myself in a rather dark and lonely place. I'd already been element collecting for a couple years, and naturally, needing a new distraction and something to pass the time I would've normally spent with friends, I started looking up procedures for isolation of elements that I couldn't just find laying around. My first actual experiment was isolation of bismuth metal from Pepto-Bismol, following the YouTube video by "TheChemLife" (now registered here as chironex). I soon found this forum, and lurked for a few months before joining.

To this day, I still find that my most active periods of chemical experimentation occur when I am feeling lonely or needing a break from my social life. Working in the home lab has a sort of therapeutic value for me. I'm sure I would have picked up some other hobby as my main interest if it hadn't been chemistry, but I'm really glad that I chose to pursue chemistry since it is rather unique, and has become part of my identity over the last several years.

I will say this though- if you are in high school right now and truly interested in chemistry, go for it. If you're wanting to major in chemistry in college, getting an early start, teaching yourself, and building lab experience at home is the best thing you can do. For me it opened up huge opportunities. I got into an organic chemistry research lab as a freshman, largely thanks to my experience with amateur chemistry (students are not normally expected to start in a research lab until their junior year, at least at my university). After working there for a year now, I'm already doing graduate level work. So, in closing- if you're just getting started, don't be afraid to start small and simple. As your experience grows and you build up a wider array of chemicals and equipment (this takes a long time, especially if you have parental restrictions), your abilities to carry out more complex experiments/reactions will too, and your specific interests will most likely change along with that. If you're doing it right, it will reward you in the future!




Come check out the Official Sciencemadness Wiki
They're not really active right now, but here's my YouTube channel and my blog.
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
Rhodanide
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 348
Registered: 23-7-2015
Location: The 80s
Member Is Offline

Mood: That retro aesthetic

[*] posted on 17-11-2017 at 05:57


Quote: Originally posted by VSEPR_VOID  

I know that feel bro


That picture is my new favorite thing



thank you so much




View user's profile View All Posts By User
VSEPR_VOID
National Hazard
****




Posts: 719
Registered: 1-9-2017
Member Is Offline

Mood: Fullerenes

[*] posted on 18-11-2017 at 13:32


Quote: Originally posted by Tetra  
Quote: Originally posted by VSEPR_VOID  

I know that feel bro


That picture is my new favorite thing



thank you so much


Don't thank me brother, thank Kek. Shadilay




Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
Within cells interlinked
View user's profile View All Posts By User
NEMO-Chemistry
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1559
Registered: 29-5-2016
Location: UK
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 19-11-2017 at 17:13


Quote: Originally posted by NEMO-Chemistry  
If you do aga's experiment, add into it a little extra. Grab some Red cabbage, boil some to buggery until you get a red liquid. Cool it down and filter it.

This liquid acts like a PH indicator, test the vinegar in test tube thats got a few drops of the liquid added and do the same with the baking soda. NOTE downt your obs and then do the same with some the product you get from adding the Acetic acid to Sodium Bicarbonate.

Again write it all down.

Growing crystals, if you want to stay in the parent zone for a bit (food safe stuff), then get hold of pure sea salt or aquarium tonic salt, dont use normal table salt. Use that to grow crystals, add a bit of food colour to another set of the same stuff ;).

Getting the parents onside = glassware for Christmas and Birthdays, getting parents upset with bangs and smells at the start ends your adventure pretty quickly.

What country you in?

[Edited on 28-10-2017 by NEMO-Chemistry]


I did some experiments with salt in the end. Also about two weeks ago a program on TV showed a sea salt company doing it, they are called Maldon sea salt, they supply the queen and use the old fashioned evap method.

The video is not the one I saw the other week, but very similar and its the same company, the difference however is this video left out some information, the TV version i saw gave a small but vital bit of info.

First the video of sea salt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0PoXqCm25g

What this video dosnt tell you, and what I saw in other sea salt videos is the Magnesium. Take a look at this video, this is alot like the end product i first got with sea salt, its very different from the salt in the maldon video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEq6LVeQGSY


Then i saw the program, and the guy mentions that the magnesium salt flakes float off first, they remove these in the first 24 hours. They look like flat crystals or flakes and left in they dont give a good salt crystal.

So next I did it in a dish and very slowly heated sea water, after a 3-4 hours i got magnesium Chloride flakes that I took off the top. The Sodium Chloride crystals all seemed to come from the bottom and didnt float in mine, i got nice white clean crystals.

The Salt Crystals took around 6-8 hours to form a good amount, i could/should have left it alot longer though. table salt as mentioned somewhere in this thread, just gives a fine mass of crystals that creep up the sides of the dish.

Using Sea salt you can grow pretty large crystals of snow white salt fairly large. I used mine (Yum).

The pic is the Magnesium Chloride (i assume its Chloride) that floats on top first.



magnesium-chloride.jpg - 177kB
View user's profile View All Posts By User
nightowl52
Harmless
*




Posts: 3
Registered: 17-3-2018
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 17-3-2018 at 08:51


Well i started my chemistry run late im 52 started 2 years ago building my lab and have a fume hood im made it started out with waterbased chemistry for coloured mulch now im into organic chemistry love it what doesn't kill you makes you stronger lol start with what your comfortable with look at youtube videos ,dougs lab, nurd rage ,nile red are great helped me heaps good luck.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
 Pages:  1    3

  Go To Top