@pentavalentcarbon What thoughts on Gentoo? (Most of my experience is on Debian, but I was forced into Gentoo when one of the computers I tried to install Linux on crashed out on boot with Debian.) Seemed more trouble than it was worth for all but high-end power users, wanting to optimize performance of everything.
@pentavalentcarbon And then there's the fun when you have things with conflicting dependencies. I now see the magic of virtualenvs, but haven't yet needed to figure them out.
We just learned about the 2 slit experiment in Quantum Chemistry today, where electrons behave as waves when nobody is looking and behave as particles when they are being observed.
So, what would happen If I were to observe an atom (such that all it's electrons now behave as particles instead o...
@Brian Based on my limited understanding of Gentoo, Arch is similar except the official repositories contain pre-compiled binaries. So, it's just like Ubuntu from that standpoint.
So, 99% of my packages are "official" ones that I haven't modified in any way, and things update normally.
Dependency management is never an issue; it's excellent. The package manager (pacman) is so nice to work with.
The nice thing is that compared to Debian/Ubuntu, packages are build using what amounts to a glorified shell script. There's a few other variables specific to their package building system, but you get used to it.
So, if I want to modify an official package (say, compile with more options or leave static libraries in), I update my clone of the official repositories, edit, make, install, and I'm off to the races.
A lot of the software we use doesn't exist in the official repositories, of course. I think the existence of the Debichem people is great. They might have packages for all the truly free quantum packages that don't require signing a license agreement.
So I've either written Arch packages to compile from source or re-package the Debian ones, since some things I still can't compile properly.
For software where I want multiple versions, I still use environment modules, but other things I just want the latest version and for it to work. So the system install is fine.
@MAFIA36790 Agreed, not much about Chemistry. I don't have the time to do the research, but I think on physics.se there should already be a question along the lines "Why don't electrons fall into the nucleus?" I don't want to close it just yet, but you can push it into the queue.
We VTC homework questions because we assume the OP is someone unfocused trying to get us do his job, rather than a baffled student eager to learn.
I am not sure this is true.
> That's the biggest mistake with this. We're judging content from its OP. It has never been that way in closure. But now that we've dived in, we can't look back.
I would like to know what kind of catalysis I must use to carry out the condensation reaction of 4,4'-diacetylbiphenyl with urea in order to obtain a Shiff base or the genearl conditions to achieve this condensation.
@Brian I just saw you comment on the HW chatroom. Since most of the HW is from new users (rep 1) that would not help. They need to be summoned to chat or gain rep 20. And with a sloppy HW this is simply not happening. So this idea is a dead end.
I kind of think that the only real approach is a faq like library for common hw questions. That of course should come with all the necessary explanations and a deeper insight, possibly more sources. And a couple of worked examples. This way we can close such "Is it correct?" question as duplicates. We still can tell them in the comments it's okay and if they want to know more they should check this post.
I believe that such questions open the possibility of encouraging new users to get active on the site. And active users is something we always need...
@Martin-マーチン This would almost require a new adjunct site, which would function ~completely differently from the SE model. It would be really awkward to try to cram into the Q&A structure.
@Martin-マーチン Oh, absolutely. It's like WordPress just simply not allowing posting of images into blog comments. No one wants the kinds of images that 99.9999%+ of the comments would contain.
These sorts of questions touch on the fundamental identity of the community. What do we want to be on- and off-topic here?
Do we want to be a resource that extends to educating raw beginners? Do we choose to take on the responsibility to guide every misinformed, misguided, or confused individual...
@Brian We all agree with each other but can't come up with something to do, or maybe feel too lazy/anxious/bored/worried to do so. It's like a bunch of kids around a cake not touching it because they worry they might finish it.
@IͶΔ I don't think it's quite this. What we need is for the handful of us to be able to spend an hour and a half around a whiteboard hashing things out, instead of trying to cram the discussion through the drinking straw of a chatroom.
@Martin-マーチン Hope it went well. Was up late myself revising some slides. Sleep well. (No time to copy the Japanese over from Google Translate, my youngest is clamoring for his breakfast. :-)
@Brian if you want to have a look: codereview.stackexchange.com/q/124354/92423 I think I did okay. It is a big improvement over the clutter I had before and I am ashamed to share.
@Mart (or anyone), what's the rep level where regular users gain the ability to summon people to chat, if any? Could we ask SO overlords to implement a privilege, say at 500 or 1000 rep, enabling summoning-to-chat? That might be one way to draw low-rep "HW" askers into chat, to draw the interaction off the main site?
Superpings allow moderators to ping any user on the site from the chatroom, even if they haven't been in the chat in the recent past. If the superpinged user doesn't have a chat account because he lacks the required 20 reputation it will be created. This allows moderators to invite new user to th...
@Brian The standard way to draw low-rep "HW" askers into chat is when the system creates a chatroom for discussions that go on for too long in the comment section of a question.
When a promising new user is having trouble making his first post and the community wants to help, we should make it easier for them to do so. I've seen chat work really well for this, and discussion in comments is not a pattern we want to set with a newcomer's very first participation on the si...
@IͶΔ Turns out he did, the second line is the overall equation. But he wrote that he will rewrite that part a bit to remove the source of possible confusion.
> I can see that as I have written it, that is a logical assumption to make. In fact, the second equation is a properly balanced equation starting from manganate(VII) ions, and considering the overall reaction.
I will rewrite the text to remove the possible confusion. I will do that now ..
Welcome to The Periodic Table @ramsay! Here are our chat guidelines and it's recommended that you read them. If you want to turn Mathjax on, make a bookmark of the link in this answer. Happy chatting!
A know-it-all or know-all is a person who obnoxiously purports an expansive comprehension of a topic and/or situation when in reality, his/her comprehension is inaccurate or limited. This display may or may not be directly expressed.
The German word Besserwisser is also used in some languages, literally meaning "better knower."
== See also ==
Pedant
Polymath
Smart Alec
Whiz Kid
== References... ==
In chemistry, recrystallization is a technique used to purify chemicals. By dissolving both impurities and a compound in an appropriate solvent, either the desired compound or impurities can be coaxed out of solution, leaving the other behind. It is named for the crystals often formed when the compound precipitates out. Alternatively, recrystallization can refer to the natural growth of larger ice crystals at the expense of smaller ones.
== ChemistryEdit ==
In chemistry, recrystallization is a procedure for purifying compounds. The most typical situation is that a desired "compound A" is ...
@IͶΔ Physical agitation/disruption. In order for crystals to form (or for gas bubbles to form, too, for that matter), there's sort of an "activation cluster size" that it has to get across.
In theory, actually, both fast cooling and slow cooling should have the same potential for overcooling
But there's essentially always some physical disturbance associated with fast cooling that provides the 'bump' needed to get over the nucleation activation barrier
It's why in chem lab when you're boiling water for a hot water bath you're always supposed to scratch the beaker you're boiling in, or to add boiling chips.
Both provide nucleation sites that catalyze water vapor bubble formation.
It would be a real mess if @Chemobot's cache ever got wiped -- would he re-scan the chat history, and then re-post every post he ever posted? That would be... massive output.