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watson.fawkes
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More chemists is the best tactic for more acceptance of chemistry.
Thesis: More chemists is the best tactic for more acceptance of chemistry.
This is pretty obvious for me. Political acceptance is always universal when "everyone does it" or, at least, enough people do it that it's common,
not sequestered out of sight, and familiar. Any discussion of tactics, I believe, has to acknowledge the basic truth that there is safety in numbers.
Any tactic that has, even as a side effect, the consequence of significantly reducing those numbers is almost certainly a self-defeating tactic.
The easiest chemists to make are hobbyist chemists, not professional ones, because they take less time and effort to make. There's a pipeline in the
creation of chemical expertise, and it begins with clueless newbies. Indeed, clueless newbies with a nascent interest in chemistry are the single most
important population segment in creating more chemists. On one side, people with no interest can't be persuaded. On the other, people who have already
started will tend to continue. (In the event that this population bogs down, it will mean that we're dealing with problems of success.) This forum,
Sciencemadness, is a part of that pipeline. As an open discussion forum on the internet, it is a principal point of entry for clueless newbies. These
people are not a problem; they are the beginning of the long-term solution.
Personal abuse, harangue, etc. and, generally, emotional violence of any kind, are completely destructive to creating new
chemists. As of this writing, there is far more concern amongst the membership of this board about discussing prohibited substances. Far more damage
to amateur chemistry has been done, though, by tolerating abusive language directed by veteran members of this board against new ones. There will
always be discussion of contraband somewhere on the net. If it's discussed here it reflects poorly on Sciencemadness in particular, but it does no new
harm, no harm that hasn't already been incurred, to amateur chemistry as a whole. The diminishing of Sciencemadness as a welcoming place for clueless
newbies, though, is a unique loss.
Sciencemadness would do well to actively foster newcomers into the field. "Actively foster" is a higher standard than merely avoiding harm.
True, avoiding harm is a first step, but it's not the last. Whatever these steps might be, they should be either (1) structural or (2) explicit.
Structural steps are things like organization of forum sections, sticky threads, and availability of reference material. Explicit steps are those
things explicitly endorsed by management as policy, regular practice, expected behavior, etc. Active fostering begins at the top. Yes, Polverone, I'm
talking to you. My ability here is to argue a convincing case, to enroll the manifold talents and insights of the membership here in crafting
effective approaches, but it will be up to you for ultimate execution.
The learning curve for clueless newbies is steep; we need to first appreciate this and then alleviate it. Appreciating it means an exercise of
empathy in what its like to be overwhelmed with possibility, ignorance, and danger. It's very easy for experienced people to forget what that's like,
to assume that their obvious background knowledge can be impenetrable, unanticipated mystery to a clueless newbie.
A supportive culture is compatible with one that also cautions against all the hazards of the field--injury, toxicity, and legality to name but
a few. I haven't seen a huge amount of discussion about how to create that culture, although I've seen it addressed in passing. If we are to encourage
such a culture, we need to be explicit about what that means, not the least to be able to teach last year's clueless newbies what it means to
encourage next year's crop.
These are general points about goals, not about how to achieve them. I could, of course, go on about what to do. I'm not here to lecture, but to
induce further participation. Your turn. Reply here or start some new threads.
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JohnWW
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But they would have to obtain some education in chemistry and related sciences (including chemical engineering). After that, they would probably be
looking for jobs as chemists or similar to make use of that education (especially if they are encumbered with student loans), unless they are
financially independent through inheritance. Where would all the jobs for them come from, in a deep rece$$ion (especially in the U$A due to its
overvalued currency, and the UK), which I predict will be MUCH worse in 2010?
[Edited on 11-7-09 by JohnWW]
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starman
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I think your logic here is sound and your approach admirable,however I think we are too far down the road of social prejudice against our hobby for it
to be sucessful.
In my home state here in Western Australia it is illegal to own fitted glass of any description,its not 'war on drugs' its 'war on home chemistry'
period.
Trying to recruit enough people to build something akin to a lobby group just isn't going to happen under these conditions.It would be similar to
trying to star something like the NRA here,maybe if we started 50 years ago,but not now.
Chemistry- The journey from the end of physics to the beginning of life.(starman)
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Sedit
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See your all wrong about it and watson is right. If there was more of us or more importantly if we would come out of the shadows for a change alot of
things would happen. Bad things at first I must admit but after that laws would be forced into recession.
There is a topic in whimsy that I can't quite remeber the name of but im sure many of you do where an old man that practiced chemistry had his house
catch fire and they came into his basement to find a lab. Right away it was assumed a drug lab and seized costing him years of research and alot of
money in equipment.
If there was more honest chemist out in the open people would not jump to the conclusion as much the way they do now because it would be more common
place but as I stated in the other threed it is human nature to fear what we don't understand. Our main goal as a collective should be to educate
those that do no understand and show them that even if we are working with chemicals we know what where doing with them and it can be a fun thing.
One thing I do when showing a new person that I practice chemistry is throw some Al foil into some muratic acid for them and explain to them whats
going on. There eyes will light up like a child in awe most of the time showing fear and excitment all at the same time. Many times they will ask
you.."What else you got ". This is what we need more of before people understand
us and no longer view us as the village witch doctor even if thats what we are. The day that people view chemistry as excitment is the day that all
our problems go away so im with watson and the more of us that crawl out from our scared little rock the faster this freedom train will come a
rolling.
First the will accuse... then they will aquit.... then most important of all, they will accept and enjoy!
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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Magpie
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I think the general philosphy of your idea is good - be kind, encouraging, and helpful to new people.
I would think that it is tough to be really interested in chemistry today for a young person high school age or younger. They are looked on by their
classmates as druggies, kewls, or nerds. When you are at the age where peer acceptance is so important being thought a nerd or "brainiac" (damn I
hate that word) is probably the worst thing that can happen. So they probably come to the internet where they can pursue their interest anonymously.
If so, I think they would find SMDB very quickly.
I'm being facetious here but I couldn't help but think of some programs we could start:
"Adopt a Kewl"
"Take a Newbie to Lunch this Week"
"Recipe of the Month Club"
[Edited on 11-7-2009 by Magpie]
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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Sedit
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"They are looked on by their classmates as druggies, kewls, or nerds"
How do the "brainiacs" gain any recognition and no longer live in the hell that is high school? They either become a drug synthesiser, Kewl saying
they could synthesis XY and Z, or nerd.....
The later already has been fulfilled hence the reason most start here with questions that bother the old and unforgiving because they forget what its
like to need to impress ones freinds for acceptance.
[Edited on 11-7-2009 by Sedit]
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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watson.fawkes
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Quote: Originally posted by starman  | | I think your logic here is sound and your approach admirable,however I think we are too far down the road of social prejudice against our hobby for it
to be sucessful. In my home state here in Western Australia it is illegal to own fitted glass of any description,its not 'war on drugs' its 'war on
home chemistry' period. |
The strategy of making more chemists is the right strategy no matter where you are
on the acceptance curve. Consider the alternative. If there are no home chemists, you are heading down the road of full professionalization combined
with complete illegality for everything else. Admittedly, progress in your location will be slower, simply because one ordinary kind of equipment will
be unavailable. But just because one way of doing chemistry is unavailable, doesn't mean others are.
From a global point of view, more chemists elsewhere in the world will eventually put pressure on your jurisdiction. By analogy, I won't stop
advocating free speech just because there are repressive regimes in the world. Eventually, at a time scale not to be predicted, things will change. In
the interim, you can either live to an ideal or submit to despair and give up. I always consider choosing despair to be stupid; there's never an
upside in it.
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entropy51
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questions that bother the old and unforgiving ?
Who you calling old, young man? LOL
It's not just the old, or even mainly the old who flame the kids.
I was actually trying to be helpful to one (who shall remain nameless) until he posted pictures of chemicals stored in ways that chemicals should
never be stored.
But I certainly subscribe to the viewpoints expressed. When I was a kid I was befriended by science teachers, lab technicians and pharmacists. In
many ways they were my peer group more so than most kids at school. But there were at least a half dozen of us in high school who did experiments
together. Life was boring enough without computers and iPods that chemistry could actually be exciting.
But the bullies should be careful about abusing the nerds. When they grow up, the nerds will be their bosses.
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Sedit
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Im not pointing fingers entropy. Just making mention of the fact that
tolerance goes down with age because we may forget what its like to be young and enthusiastic.
I seen the pictures from the nameless fellow also and thats one time where someone needs to speak up so thats a slightly different case. The cyanide's
are what worryed me the most.
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by entropy51 | | I was actually trying to be helpful to one (who shall remain nameless) until he posted pictures of chemicals stored in ways that chemicals should
never be stored. |
Yes, the case you mention was on my mind; not the only one, mind you, but definitely
relevant.
So here's the subtlety about making more chemists: you don't need to accept in everyone who's interested in order to make new chemists. In other
words, don't be desperate. Some people are definitely bad for the field. Vitally important, though, is that there just aren't that many people that
fall into these categories. I have a pretty short list:Flagrantly unsafe
Blatantly illegal
Aggressively lazy
Emotionally violent
Note that these categories are all extremes of one sort or another. The mild versions of these are all acceptable, because, well, people
eventually grow up. It behooves our community to help them grow up.
Now to rhetorical techniques. In the case you mention, the question to my mind is how you warn such a person about what's going to happen without just
flaming them. I admit this is a balancing act, because you have to simultaneously tell them (1) that what they're doing in this particular case is
wrong and (2) that their interest in the general area is right. There's something of an apparent contradiction here. The first trick is to always
speak simultaneously about both aspects: near-term danger and long-term promise.
The second trick is how to couch this advice well. We need both a stern tone about near-term danger and a warn tone about long term promise. All the
good ways of doing this I can think of have a common principle at heart: the thought "I am concerned for your welfare." The way that this ramifies in
rhetoric is something like this: "I'm glad you're doing chemistry. What your doing will eventually stop you from doing chemistry. Here's why. Here's
what you can do differently." Said this way, you are putting yourself on their side against the world. This kind of message is essentially
affirmative, a "Yes", and the counsel becomes an assistance rather than an obstacle.
Now I've seen people here admonish clueless newbies in other ways, and it doesn't work. The one that immediately comes to mind is this: "What you're
doing makes me look bad." The criticism here has been about both unsafe practices and prohibited substances. The ordinary reaction to such criticism
is pretty basic: "Fuck you." And I have to say, I agree with this reaction. I think it's completely well founded and even deserved. If you're going to
pursue amateur chemistry, a not fully-accepted practice, you already have to assume that people are going to tell you "No" in any number of ways. When
you (you-nonspecific) approach a clueless newbie with a criticism that's about you and not about them, you're simply reiterating the "No" they hear
from others. So their reply is a repetition of their basic motivation to experiment in the first place. Good for them.
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watson.fawkes
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A specific example of counsel that clueless newbies may need is the insistence upon eye protection. I recall in my high school chemistry class the
teacher plopped raw eggs into relatively concentrated acid and base at the beginning of one class. At the end he opened them up for the class to see.
That day I learned that strong bases are nothing to scoff at.
If I were doing this today for internet publication, I'd do the same kind of demonstration on cow eyeballs. Given that they are slaughterhouse
by-products, I understand that they are inexpensive (but a cursory search query turned up no sources). In any case, it would be a pretty
straightforward project to make video showing what happens to ocular tissue under the action of various common lab substances. There's another video
about "why you should wear your gloves", although no easily-available analogue for human skin tissue immediately comes to mind. (Maybe skin-on bacon
from a carniceria; hmm.) I can't really volunteer for this, having no video equipment.
In any case, there's a whole genre here to develop. It could even be kind of fun, if you like blowing things up. Purely for educational value. The
"don't use a boiling flask with a star crack while distilling sulfuric acid" one would be particularly amusing.
The message here fits directly into the context "I am concerned for your welfare", where safety is the particular kind of welfare at issue. The
factual statement is "This really could happen to you". The counsel is "Please don't let it, because then you couldn't take pleasure in doing
chemistry".
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entropy51
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"Im not pointing fingers entropy. Just making mention of the fact that tolerance goes down with age because we may forget what its like to be young
and enthusiastic."
Sedit, you and I point fingers in good natured fun. But I haven't forgotten what it's like to be young. I'm still too enthusiastic. I am not so
sure that tolerance goes down, but maybe caution goes up as the passing years teach you how bad things can get if you're not careful. A burned child
dreads the fire, or something like that.
Mark Twain said something like "When I was 18, I knew my father to be a fool. When I was 21 I was amazed at how much the old man had learned."
Watson is making some very good points! The young ones typically feel invulnerable to all harm and thus discount advice, but they are more likely to
listen if they are not lectured to as if they were children.
As an example, I resisted the temptation to flame the guy who just double-posted!
Watson said "The "don't use a boiling flask with a star crack while distilling sulfuric acid" one would be particularly amusing." I wonder if we
shouldn't be teaching them not to distill H2SO4 at all. My experience is that Rooto works for 95% of what I do and I keep a little ACS reagent grade
for the rest. You have to pause for a second when dead chemists like Henry Roscoe caution you about something, since warnings were most uncommon in
the old books. And Roscoe did lots of perchloric distillations, so he was no wuss.
[Edited on 11-7-2009 by entropy51]
[Edited on 11-7-2009 by entropy51]
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by Magpie | I would think that it is tough to be really interested in chemistry today for a young person high school age or younger. [...] I think they would
find SMDB very quickly.
[...]
"Take a Newbie to Lunch this Week"
"Recipe of the Month Club" |
High
school social outcasts are indeed finding Sciencemadness, as has become apparent. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot for them to do once they
arrive. We don't really have a place dedicated for them. Even "Beginnings" can be too far ahead of them. As a first thought, perhaps a forum "First
Lab Procedures" with plenty of sticky threads, each starting with an illustrated procedure.
People learn concepts based upon activities they perform. This idea informs my advice that folks should be given procedures to do before being forced
to learn the theory. The "Recipe of the Month Club" is a solid, serious idea to promote this way of bringing clueless newbies into the fold of
chemistry. The academic style of teaching people concepts and after-the-fact justifying them in the lab is, I believe, harmful to engaged learning.
Direct mentoring, taking newbies to lunch, for example, is also a good idea, albeit harder to do in purely electronic form. I'd love to see some
formalization of this idea with a bit of software support, but that's not going to happen immediately.
Your message also touches on issues of visibility and pride, which I acknowledge but do not address now.
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by Sedit | How do the "brainiacs" gain any recognition and no longer live in the hell that is high school? They either become a drug synthesiser, Kewl saying
they could synthesis XY and Z, or nerd.....
The later already has been fulfilled hence the reason most start here with questions that bother the old and unforgiving because they forget what its
like to need to impress ones freinds for acceptance. |
This is a very good point, psychologically valid, and
offers an entry in crafting an intervention strategy for these people.
I have nephew, 15, who has recently taken up an interest in pyrotechnics. He wants to make some devices and wants to know how to get away with it. His
father (my brother) had some advice for him that is just excellent: "Don't get away with it. Just do it." What he was saying was to take pride in his
activities and to do them openly. This is counter-intuitive to most people, because they are so used to accepting influence from other people. So what
my brother's advice was also saying was to be a leader rather than a follower.
Teenagers primarily look to each other for acceptance. Those who have even a modicum of self-composure tend to become centers of social attention,
simply because they have put themselves in that position by not relying solely on their peers for validation. While teenagers look to each other, they
don't look only to each other. And here is where Sciencemadness can play a role. If we encourage technically-minded youngsters to do
interesting things, we provide them with an external source of validation. This both alleviates their need for peer validation, making it more likely
that they'll continue technical pursuits, as well as (in the best case) allows them to entrain their friends into those same technical pursuits.
What to encourage them to do? Pyrotechnics, actually, seems like quite a good subject matter. There's very little chemistry that's both interesting
and completely safe. On balance, playing with fire is one of the easier ones to manage because the risks of fire are immediately visible, unlike, say,
those involved with cumulative toxins.
So, what to advise teenagers to do with fire? I'd say an interesting activity with only modest entry cost is to fiddle around with gunpowder
formulations for, say, speed of combustion. I can even imagine a science contest where teams compete in a gunpowder race. In the practice phase, teams
are given a certain amount of gunpowder ingredients from a common store to experiment with. Since charcoal affects so much of gunpowder behavior, this
is a real mini-research project. In the race phase, teams are given aliquots of each ingredient and have an hour to submit their sample. The team with
the fastest gunpowder wins.
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by entropy51 | | Watson said "The "don't use a boiling flask with a star crack while distilling sulfuric acid" one would be particularly amusing." I wonder if we
shouldn't be teaching them not to distill H2SO4 at all. |
Well, this point is orthogonal to mine. Substitute a
distillation of any hazardous substance, preferably an oxidizer, though, so it can go Horribly Wrong, and you get the same effect I'm looking for.
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Polverone
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Watson, you have obviously thought about this a lot and have some very good ideas. Like many good ideas a lot of it is going to depend on the
implementation as much as the original concept. Is the Home Chemistry Society site still active? I think it would form a great complementary site to
Sciencemadness itself.
Refined instructional material is better delivered through a wiki than a series of forum posts, and I think the HCS wiki would be a natural location
for it. We can still have sticky threads here for discussing activities, but I think the first post in the thread should link to the wiki entry rather
than contain the full instructions.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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Magpie
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I believe that newbies come to this forum for the same reasons the older and more experienced members come. We come to talk about our experiences and
to learn of the findings of others. But also a big part of it is just social, ie, just having someone to talk to who understands and loves chemistry.
We sometimes get too impatient with newbies for asking questions that they could easily find answers to by searching, either here or on Google. They
may already know this. What they're really here for is some of that socialization.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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basstabone
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Watson: I am actually a living account of the mentoring and tutoring of older more experienced mentors. The one person in my life who got me into
chemistry was my high school AP chem teacher. Before that I was dieing to go into some medical field but she changed my whole outlook. Her name was
Doc, appropriate because she had received her graduate degree in organic synthesis, and she allowed me to come in fourth period and after school and
do any experiment I ran by her first. Granted a high school lab is not equipped with everything a chemist would need, but it served it's purpose with
what I had planned for it.
Everyday for a year I was in the lab doing everything I could even think of. I worked with black powder formulas, flash powder, did dozens of demos
from aluminum in bromine to the "barking dog" and combustion of acetylene and chlorine. It was an incredible time in my life just to have her there to
guide me along and set me up with something that I had a passion for.
Haha so I guess the point I'm trying to make it is that mentors really do make a difference and I think it would be very beneficial to set something
up like that. Almost like a big brother/sister program where you pair an experienced chemist with a not so experienced person to allow for growth and
bonding.
Just my two cents on the whole matter!
~Bass
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starman
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WF:- The strategy of making more chemists is the right strategy no matter where you are on the acceptance curve.
I agree with your strategy.Just pointing out that members in different locations face varying degrees of difficulty implementing it.
WF:- Simply because one ordinary kind of equipment will be unavailable. But just because one way of doing chemistry is unavailable, doesn't mean
others are.
Having to get by with home made equipment for many years I know to which you refer.Indeed I learned a great deal about chemical/plastics
compatibility,sometimes disasterously.
But having at last acquired enough litre-scale glassware to approach things more seriously(prior to the enaction of this draconian legislation) I'm
not putting it at risk by proclaiming to all and sundry what I am into.
I love my hobby/research.I even risk imprisonment for the equipment I currently possess.I won't let a few inconvenient laws get in my way.But I will
keep a low profile and keep my mouth shut.
This kind of initative has my whole support,just can't see us here in Australia being able to contribute.
Chemistry- The journey from the end of physics to the beginning of life.(starman)
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watson.fawkes
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Thank you. | Quote: | | Like many good ideas a lot of it is going to depend on the implementation as much as the original concept. Is the Home Chemistry Society site still
active? I think it would form a great complementary site to Sciencemadness itself. |
HCS is pretty inactive.
There have been 13 changes (including talk) in the last 90 days. I myself haven't been on it in almost a year. I spent some time fiddling about with
how to make something useful. What I came up with is best illustrated in the page Synthesis of Sulfuric Acid. I wrote a wiki-macro that makes it easier to reference Sciencemadness threads, but it still requires URL wrangling
(which would be easier with a bookmarklet or the like). My experience in doing even this much is that it's a fair amount of work to get all the
cross-referencing right. On the other hand, the thing that makes wiki work is that you can do this incrementally. And many hands make light work.
So we need more hands. It would be greatly beneficial if HCS were to become the official wiki of SM and SM the official discussion board of HCS (or
something similar). Even just a link to HCS would be useful. I'll volunteer for this task--if you'd like me figure out how to put the link into the
XMB theme for the board, I'll do that. Also, in the user profile page, where there are fields for "Other Information", with Aim and ICQ addresses, it
would be useful to have their HCS login (formatted as a direct link to the relevant user page). I can look into this, as well.
Edit: I just changed my "Site" information in my profile here to point to my user page at HCS: http://www.homechemistry.org/index.php?title=User:Watson.fawkes
There is plenty to figure out what to do with a wiki, but all those questions aren't really ripe yet, given that we need more wiki users first.
Who even runs the HCS wiki, anyway? The information page on the site is empty.
| Quote: | | Refined instructional material is better delivered through a wiki than a series of forum posts, and I think the HCS wiki would be a natural location
for it. We can still have sticky threads here for discussing activities, but I think the first post in the thread should link to the wiki entry rather
than contain the full instructions. |
I'm with you there. Discussion boards just aren't good for reference
material. Lacking anything else to do, the default here is to tell people to UTFSE to get background information, an instruction as singularly
unhelpful as it is the only real answer at the moment.
As for a completely practical matter, what existing forum section on SM would you recommend for discussion about making reference material on the
wiki? In many ways it's not really discussing chemistry so much as discussing pedagogy about chemistry. I'd put it in "Miscellaneous" lacking anything
better.
[Edited on 13-7-2009 by watson.fawkes]
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by basstabone | | I guess the point I'm trying to make it is that mentors really do make a difference and I think it would be very beneficial to set something up like
that. Almost like a big brother/sister program where you pair an experienced chemist with a not so experienced person to allow for growth and bonding.
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We could do that with a sticky thread named "Beginners Seeking Mentors", a thread for posting a rather
narrow sort of personal ad.
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kclo4
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I think to get more home chemists we need to get more people interested in pyrotechniques. I really think that is the gateway. Thats how I got
started, and I know most people get interested in high explosives after a few fireworks are made. Kids, and I'm sure adults love things that go boom.
It would be nice to have a forum that is both pyrotechniques and chemistry related that is extremely friendly to the noob, but encouraging to become
better and interested in chemistry itself, and not just the pretty colors it can produce.
What forums like that exist at the moment?
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by starman | having at last acquired enough litre-scale glassware to approach things more seriously(prior to the enaction of this draconian legislation) I'm not
putting it at risk by proclaiming to all and sundry what I am into. [...] This kind of initative has my whole support,just can't see us here in
Australia being able to contribute.
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I completely appreciate your need to conceal your identity. Pseudonymity is one of the things the internet
is quite good at. So while I would not ask you to proclaim "to all and sundry" in an identifiable manner, you can do so safely under a pseudonym.
But when you say that folks in Australia can't contribute, you may be overlooking ways that you can. Certainly not in every way, given the constraints
of pseudonymity, but that doesn't exclude everything.
Your experience in dealing with home-built equipment is definitely useful. Newbies, not yet committed to the field, are
unlikely to plunk down a few hundred USD for glassware and lab equipment just to get started. The ability to work with constrained equipment on simple
lab procedures is exactly what the newbie segment needs.
You can contribute knowledge of local regulations. I'd like to build a compendium of chemistry regulations worldwide. Uncertainty means more
risk, more risk means fewer participants, and so uncertainty about laws and the regulatory environment is an obstacle. You'll get more chemists in
Australia, even with your legal restrictions, if potential chemists know what the rules are.
You can contribute suggestions for chemistry activities that do not fall afoul of the local regulations. Remember, things that are obvious to
you are completely opaque to clueless newbies. Someone excited by and new to chemistry would really appreciate suggestions about interesting things to
try.
You can tell your personal story, from the cover of a pseudonym, about your interest in chemistry, what you work on, and why the regulations in
your country are unjust to you. This is not a trivial step, nor one I would expect, but it is useful. Justice is one of the great motivators of
political change, and claiming injustice when all you are pursuing is scientific truth is a solid political argument. So, there are some
suggestions. If you think of more, which you're more capable of, since you're in your own shoes and I am not, please do post them (even if you don't
do them), because you might inspire further action by others.
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by kclo4 | | It would be nice to have a forum that is both pyrotechniques and chemistry related that is extremely friendly to the noob, but encouraging to become
better and interested in chemistry itself, and not just the pretty colors it can produce. |
I am in agreement.
I'll just point out that it's easier for people with general chemistry experience to comment usefully on pyrotechnics than it is vice-versa. That
means to cross the pyrotechnics to chemistry threshold is easier for a chemistry group than a pyrotechnics group. What this means to me is that one
belongs here.
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kclo4
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I don't know if one belongs here, it could lead to some serious noob problems in the Energetic material section as well as others.. I would think at
least. This could annoy a lot of the members who are really into exotic explosives, primaries, etc.
I think kids at a younger age get interested into making rockets, etc. more so then other people, though I could be totally wrong about that.
Also you'd want to have sections of rockets, smoke bombs, colors, and the other crap pyrotech has to do with, not simply a "pyrotechnics" section.. of
course thats my opinion. Forums that have to many topics get sort of "jack of all trades, master of none"problem I think. There is a physics forum
that tries to have everything from chemistry, biology, engineering, computer, etc and I don't know if it is doing as well as it would be if it were a
single subject.
I'm sure you'd end up with posts like this more often then we do now in the energetic materials section..
"How to do make nitrogylcern and wut does it mean to be an explosive primary?
I've been considering getting another URL/site totally unrelated to the one I have now and getting a forum of pyro/chem going, which is why I asked if
there were any other forums that did this in an encouraging way. I remember one pyro site that was rather nice, but I can't ever remember its name,
and it may have gone down (APB pyrotechniques forum or something?) and other ones I've seen are normally sub-terrorist forums or in a different
language.
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