Chemistry woes
The woes of tests are upon me. I had my first Chemistry exam today and I'm devastated. I saw online that I made an 87 on it. It has to be the problem on kinetic energy that I was grappling with because it was worth 15 points and he would give partial credit for using the correct formula. And since I answered that the room wasn't long enough, that was probably right. I don't think any problem should carry that much damage on a test.
So here is the problem as best I can remember it....
Some dude is running this experiment on this neutron in a room that is 10km long. The kinetic energy of this neutron is 9.0 x 10 to the -3rd power J. The mass of the neutron is 4.5 x 10 to the -10th power kg. What is the distance this neutron will travel in 1 minute. Is the room long enough?
What I came up with after I got home was 379 km. On the test I came up with 12 km. It all has to do with the decimal place and I'm still not sure what the right answer is
By the way, for those of you who don't know, the formula for kinetic energy is E = 1/2 m u squared.
I did find out what a mole is. It took me about an hour of intellectual reasoning for my mind to accept it. I can't just accept the fact that a mole is 6.022142 x 10*23 atoms in 12 g of Carbon-12. I have to say why carbon, and why 12 grams? Why not 1 gram, and why not oxygen or Hydrogen? So while I sat in a traffic jam on my way to work. I talked this thing through--out loud mind you. It's a good thing the people around me couldn't see me pounding my steering wheel emphatically or hear me arguing with my phantom professor on the merits of carbon vs. sodium or whatever element I so desired it to be. I have now gone beyond the arguing stage to the acceptance stage. I even get the molar mass thing. By the way, those of you in the throes of algebra, what happens to an exponent when you are taking the square root of it? Is it halved? That's what's coming to my brain, but I must be certain on these things. Oh for the days of simple algebra!
I haven't fully decided on whether I like this professor or not, but I'm leaning toward the "not" side of things. He seems very arrogant to me. He spews forth with plenty of verbage but inspires little understanding. If somebody asks a question and a knowledgeable student throws out a comment, he demeans them with snide remarks and asks them if they want to take over teaching the class. He will say things like, "no question is a stupid question" and then he asks if anybody has any questions. Somebody will ask one and he says, "if you want to discuss that, meet with me after class." As if a working class girl like me has the leisure time to discuss chemistry after class! It's off to work I go so I can pay him to embarrass his students. Believe me, I won't be asking any questions in that class.
So here is the problem as best I can remember it....
Some dude is running this experiment on this neutron in a room that is 10km long. The kinetic energy of this neutron is 9.0 x 10 to the -3rd power J. The mass of the neutron is 4.5 x 10 to the -10th power kg. What is the distance this neutron will travel in 1 minute. Is the room long enough?
What I came up with after I got home was 379 km. On the test I came up with 12 km. It all has to do with the decimal place and I'm still not sure what the right answer is
By the way, for those of you who don't know, the formula for kinetic energy is E = 1/2 m u squared.
I did find out what a mole is. It took me about an hour of intellectual reasoning for my mind to accept it. I can't just accept the fact that a mole is 6.022142 x 10*23 atoms in 12 g of Carbon-12. I have to say why carbon, and why 12 grams? Why not 1 gram, and why not oxygen or Hydrogen? So while I sat in a traffic jam on my way to work. I talked this thing through--out loud mind you. It's a good thing the people around me couldn't see me pounding my steering wheel emphatically or hear me arguing with my phantom professor on the merits of carbon vs. sodium or whatever element I so desired it to be. I have now gone beyond the arguing stage to the acceptance stage. I even get the molar mass thing. By the way, those of you in the throes of algebra, what happens to an exponent when you are taking the square root of it? Is it halved? That's what's coming to my brain, but I must be certain on these things. Oh for the days of simple algebra!
I haven't fully decided on whether I like this professor or not, but I'm leaning toward the "not" side of things. He seems very arrogant to me. He spews forth with plenty of verbage but inspires little understanding. If somebody asks a question and a knowledgeable student throws out a comment, he demeans them with snide remarks and asks them if they want to take over teaching the class. He will say things like, "no question is a stupid question" and then he asks if anybody has any questions. Somebody will ask one and he says, "if you want to discuss that, meet with me after class." As if a working class girl like me has the leisure time to discuss chemistry after class! It's off to work I go so I can pay him to embarrass his students. Believe me, I won't be asking any questions in that class.
posted by Sara | 3:58 AM
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