The Periodic Table

jonsca

02:19

@Ell Hi Ell, how's it going? What can we help you with? Or just stopping by?

ManishEarth

07:01

@Ell I wasn't present at the time, but I'm usually lurking

LordStryker

15:27

Just a quick friendly reminder. Be sure to upvote good/valid questions in the queue.

ManishEarth

@LordStryker yep :) Though unfortunately the only people who watch this room are you, the mods, and MadScientist, ans we already knew that :P

(though I sometimes don't vote in the queues when maybe i should have)

LordStryker

@ManishEarth :) Do we have a SE:Chemistry meta section at all?

ManishEarth

@LordStryker yep

there are even people there

LordStryker

@ManishEarth NICE

dear oh dear the deadlines have been piling up on me the past few days... blaaaaah

ManishEarth

@LordStryker surprised you hadn't seen it before :)

LordStryker

15:36

@ManishEarth I tried looking for a link one time off the main page and never found one.

ManishEarth

hmm. must be because the link is so large

LordStryker

omg I feel stupid now

I just found it

ManishEarth

(to be fair to the link, there are others of its kind scattered throughout the page. The community bulletin usually has a couple)

@LordStryker What do you think of a topic of the week sorta thing? Space Exploration and Astronomy are doing it, and it seems like a good way to make the site more fun and increase interest.

LordStryker

@ManishEarth A chemistry TOW? I'm all for it.

It would have to be a group effort to pull it off. We would need to get everyone on board like @F'x and some other prominent members.

Otherwise it would turn into "New comp. chem. topic of the week", which I don't think many people would appreciate. :P

ManishEarth

@LordStryker mods can be brought on board, but we need to be able to get others interested. yep

haha

LordStryker

15:43

(though we did get 2 nobel prizes this year) =D

I'm just afraid of doing a TOW and not getting any contributions to the actual topic

How exactly does the TOW work? I didn't see it on Astronomy

ManishEarth

@LordStryker go to the meta.

LordStryker

ah yes, the meta

ManishEarth

7

Q: Topic of the Week: [cmb] (cosmic microwave background radiation)

Topic of the week is a week where we make an effort to ask and answer more questions around a specific tag, this brings more attention to the topic which in turn should bring us more views and users who are interested in those areas. Topic of the week helps us flesh out topics that look like the...

LordStryker

this is going to be difficult to do being the very small community that we are. I'm surprised how Astronomy is even smaller than us in terms of activity yet they are doing TOW.

ManishEarth

@LordStryker They're new, community is more enthusiastic.

LordStryker

15:48

Whats sad is we had so many backers (it seemed like) right before launch. We never did draw that number after we launched.

I nominate @ManishEarth to lead and coordinate the topic of the week! :)

ManishEarth

@LordStryker Typical for an SE site, most metrics fall down drastically

but I'm optimistic, the area51 stats are looking really good (no red!)

LordStryker

@ManishEarth Yeah. We're doing just fine. Lets turn those 'Okays' into 'Greats!'

ManishEarth

@LordStryker I'm not even a chemist! The only three topics I know are physical-chemistry, organic-chemistry, inorganic-chemistry

Oh and chirality. My personal favorite (I've answered at least one chirality question on each of Physics, Math, and Chem.)

LordStryker

@ManishEarth Yet you list 3 MAJOR areas of chemistry. :P

what other chemistry is there? I think that covers 99% of it.

ManishEarth

@LordStryker Yeah I don't know anything deeper.

LordStryker

15:53

Oh, and you listed it in the proper order (of awesomest -> not-as-awesome) Good job!

Who ARE the mods of chem:se?

ManishEarth

If prodded for details I would split OC into stuff-that-goes-boom and stuff-that-doesnt-go-boom

LordStryker

lol

ManishEarth

@LordStryker Me, Richard Terrett, jonsca, F'x, in order of decreasing distance from the North Pole.

@LordStryker hahaha, that wasn't intentional but I agree about the order :P

LordStryker

16:10

@ManishEarth I like it

Is there like a list of mods I can find somewhere?? O.o

oh wait

d'oh

the link you gave me...

never make me a mod please

actually , how can I become a mod?

I need to get more rep. nevermind.

Ell

16:31

Afternoon everyone :)

LordStryker

@Ell \o hello :)

Ell

Does this room have a code of conduct?

LordStryker

Always. Why do you ask?

Ell

Well, I come from lounge<c++> from stack exchange chat, and they are very stringent with their rules

They don't allow people to just come in and ask questions for example, is that allowed in here?

I don't want to disturb the community :)

LordStryker

@Ell We're pretty laid back. Feel free to ask away in here. We like that.

Ell

16:35

Okay cool :)

Well my question was, why does H2O not dissociate into H+ and OH-?

LordStryker

Depending on your question, we may ask that you make it a post. (we like questions on the main page just as much as we like it here)

Ell

And instead into H3O+?

LordStryker

@Ell It does. Look up 'auto-ionization of water'

oh

Yes

Ell

We learned something about the ionic product of water at school, but I'm a little confused to be honest

ManishEarth

gasp

there are other people in the room

LordStryker

16:37

If water ionizes to H3O+, and if we are just considering pure water, then the H+ has to come from somewhere right?

@ManishEarth :)

@ManishEarth Be on your best behavior now :P We don't want to scare them away.

@Ell en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ionization_of_water

The proton is going to snapped up very quickly. So in a sense you do have H2O->H+ + OH- but its lifetime is very short.

ManishEarth

@LordStryker not rep based, actually. For pro temp mods you need to have a working knowledge of the subject, then either understand how the network works or show a lot of enthusiasm and initiative in the site or just be an expert. Of course, for Chem the pro temp mods have been chosen (though new ones may be added per request, and if one of us decides to step down a replacement will be picked)

Ell

Right

ManishEarth

Once the site graduates, the mods are elected by the community

LordStryker

@ManishEarth Ah. Well if we want another mod around, I'd be willing to step up.

ManishEarth

Good to know :)

Ell

16:42

So with a sample of pure water, you will get self-ionisation

and dissociation at the same time?

LordStryker

@Ell Yup. Its a constant process.

ManishEarth

@Ell yep

LordStryker

@Ell The water doesn't even have to be pure for autoionization to occur.

In fact, a heterogenous mixture could facilitate the ionization moreso than just pure water. It depends on what the other molecules are

Ell

But pure water doesn't dissociate much does it?

I'm just trying to remember what assumptions we are told we can make. I'll check out my course spec :)

LordStryker

@Ell "Random fluctuations in molecular motions occasionally (about once every 10 hours per water molecule[8]) produce an electric field strong enough to break an oxygen–hydrogen bond, resulting in a hydroxide (OH−) and hydronium ion (H3O+);"

Its not a very fast process. However, this statement considers 1 water molecule. When you have billions of billions, then it happens a lot.

Also, it takes about 1 picosecond for the proton to be snapped up by another water molecule.

It still blows my mind that we can even measure something like that....

@Ell This would make for a good question. You should post it. @ManishEarth can write up a good answer. Then we can start handing out rep :)

Ell

16:52

@LordStryker I'm not sure how I would phrase the question

ManishEarth

@LordStryker Me? I'm busy, you try. You look like you need some rep!

@Ell We can help you with that

LordStryker

@ManishEarth You're a mod. Do your job! :P

I've got a week to finish up revising a manuscript for resubmission. I'm super busy :P

Ell

"What happens when pure water auto-ionize and dissociates?"

ManishEarth

@Ell ...it auto-ionizes and dissociates. What exactly do you want to know?

Reaction mechanism?

I don't think there is much

Ell

Hmm

LordStryker

16:55

@Ell "Why does water dissociate to H3O+ and OH- rather than H+ and OH-?"

This was pretty much your original question.

Ell

Right okay, got the question title

Yeah it was

ManishEarth

Ah

That makes sense

Ell

Now I don't know what to put in the question body, the title is self explanatory really :P

LordStryker

Then we answer, "It does dissociate to H+ and OH- but the lifetime of the free proton is very short"

@Ell Just expound on your question.

ManishEarth

@Ell Explain your own thoughts on the matter that led you to the question. We can rescue edit if necessary :>

LordStryker

16:57

Use some good LaTeX math as well.

@Ell ^^ What @ManishEarth said.

ManishEarth

Oh, also, be jealous of me:

in The h Bar, 9 mins ago, by ManishEarth

in The h Bar, 8 mins ago, by ManishEarth

I have three screens (two of them are of my laptop, one of a department computer), and I'm sitting on two swivel chairs (one is a footrest), with a blanket. This is the life :D

LordStryker

@ManishEarth 3 screens? 3x the distractions! :D

ManishEarth

that's partly the point

LordStryker

@ManishEarth Check out my lab's souped up HP Laserjet printer!

ManishEarth

G09?

LordStryker

17:01

Gaussian 09

ManishEarth

ah

LordStryker

Also here's the cluster I built for our group. (only my group gets to use it) :D

ManishEarth

looks similar to ours.

LordStryker

Thats the view from the back for you dirty dirty scientists :P

Theres actually another whole rack of comps to the left of that picture.

ManishEarth

@LordStryker hahaha

Ell

17:11

Meh. I'm really struggling to beef out this question :p

My original curiosity came from the definition $ph=-log_{10}[H^{+}]$

LordStryker

@Ell Don't think too far into it. Again, one of the mods can do an edit for you once its posted.

Ell

well here goes :P chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/6723/…

LordStryker

@Ell :) I don't see it on the main page though...

Ell

Nor do I.

Ah well

ManishEarth

@LordStryker caching

LordStryker

17:23

Ah there it is.

Ell

indeed

anyway, I'm off to a halloween party and will be back tomorrow to upvote your answers, thanks for helping out!

LordStryker

@Ell Drink a beer for me!

I've still got another 5 hours before i get off work and partake of the festivities.

Stack Exchange

20:40

1

Q: Can we make a "big list" community question for structure drawing software?

I would like to know the possible alternative available in chemistry software I've found very useful the big list like TeX or StackOverflow I would like have something similar to find the best chemical software for general propose like drawing structure and simple calculation. Is it possible?

feature-request

ManishEarth

20:52

@bobthechemist See the above ^ meta post, we had a discussion on this before I think and maybe it's time to implement it :)

F'x

~~foo~~

~foo~

ManishEarth

@F'x ~~foo~~

F'x

-foo-

~~~foo~~~

ManishEarth

(a) You could just edit my chat message and see the source

F'x

~~foo~~

^

ManishEarth

20:55

(b) chat.stackexchange.com/faq#formatting

F'x

@ManishEarth yeah, I realized that now

ManishEarth

:P

also I pinged the wrong guy. Fixed.

F'x

although some small part of me is sad you're not using Unicode in the first place ⏫

ManishEarth

I can't see that

Also, ---^--- is easier to type

5 hours ago, by ManishEarth

@LordStryker What do you think of a topic of the week sorta thing? Space Exploration and Astronomy are doing it, and it seems like a good way to make the site more fun and increase interest.

F'x

⏫▲▴🔺◭◮🔼▵△

how many of those ^^^ can you see?

ManishEarth

20:57

second, third,fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth

F'x

@LordStryker watch out who you call prominent, Mister!

@ManishEarth so only the basic plane… I suppose that's Linux for you :)

ManishEarth

On Windows, actually. Need Mathematica.

F'x

@ManishEarth there's Mathematica on Linux

ManishEarth

I know. Not gotten around to installing it, and it's slower for me

F'x

@ManishEarth ok

oh, and forgot to mention… I got a diamond on Academia. So much for spending less time on SE :)

ManishEarth

21:01

@F'x Oh, congrats! Thought you would get one eventually.

hahaha

F'x

@ManishEarth well, it's the site where I have the most rep, nowadays

ManishEarth

yep

F'x

and I'm having a lot of fun other there:

10

A: Are realistic hypothetical situation based questions permitted?

I don't see any reason why they should not be permitted, and judged by the same measure as all questions. If they are a good fit for the site (which probably requires that they be realistic), they add value and should be allowed! Moreover, I don't think you can prevent them efficiently. There'...

asking many questions, assuming multiple identities…

ManishEarth

@F'x So, we used to be the only site with three di-diamonds. Now we have two di-diamonds, two uni-diamonds, and a net of three past diamonds. Confusing.

@F'x nice!

I think the difference there is that idle curiosity should be separated from a practical, likely circumstance

F'x

@ManishEarth yeah, exactly… I get loads of questions from people around me, from past experience, etc.

ManishEarth

21:05

yep

F'x

they're hypothetical for me, but they are real questions for someone else (or in a slightly parallel universe)

ManishEarth

6

Q: Asking a question in SE might be considered a breach of anonymity?

I find the SE sites, especially Math.SE, MathOverflow and CompSci.SE, extremely useful for solving specific problems I encounter during my research. But I have one concern: if I ask a question in an SE site, and then describe the same question in a paper (whether I got an answer or not), then thi...

publishing anonymity

deliciously meta, but not meta

F'x

@ManishEarth yeah, we get of few of those…

my main interest in the site is ethics questions

ManishEarth

hmm

F'x

researchers are really bad at thinking about ethics, but Academia is a place to discuss it with people who want to think about it

65

Q: Should I recommend a student with a bad ideology?

My problem is the following: I teach an honors course in an engineering discipline at a small university. (It is not exactly that, but "teaching an honors course" is a good approximation to what I do). Large US companies sometimes ask me to recommend the best students for an interview, and they ...

recommendation-letter

even less fundamental things like that:

5

Q: Would it be ethical to hire a proofreader for theses and academic articles?

Proofreading documents for orthography is a pain. I consider that I am decent at writing in my native language (on the grammar and orthography side), but proofreading for typos and whatnots is a time-consuming pain. I’d much prefer to have someone else do it for me, but it's a pain to bother othe...

ethics language

13

Q: Ethics of a journal requiring that submissions cite existing articles in the journal

Recently, I became aware by own experiences and friend's stories that some international statistical journals (whose names I prefer to omit) are rejecting papers because they do not include a reference of the journal in question. This is, if you do not cite a paper from journal X, then you cannot...

journals citations ethics

12

Q: Do PhD programs care about the personalities of applicants?

Can a very extroverted person, for example, be more favored than a very quiet person? Or is this not ethical? Can someone who is psychopathic be barred from admission?

graduate-admissions application ethics

anyway, I should stop to flood this chatroom with another site's questions :)

and go back to writing that $*€£@! paper

see you!

ManishEarth

21:18

@F'x ooh, these are interesting

@F'x have fun! cya! :)

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