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In high school I had a chemistry teacher that came from the industry. His examples and test questions were motivated by his real world experience. While this wa

In high school I had a chemistry teacher that came from the industry. His examples and test questions were motivated by his real world experience. While this was very interesting at the same time it brought another level of complexity. One example was that we were learning about elements by mmol of substance and had to calculate how much of the input substances we needed to end up with the needed amount of end product. (My explanation might be of because this is some time ago!) Here we were not asked how many liters or kg of stuff we needed but always worked in metric tons or cubic meters. These uncommon volumes made it harder to develop an intuition about the results to quickly understand if a result was reasonable. So many of the surrounding elements that came from the real world made it harder to concentrate on the problem core.

nerdponx 4y ago
On the other hand, gradually increasing the complexity and level of detail (including distraction with irrelevant details and like taking away your intuition crutches) is a great way to start learning to apply your knowledge in a more sophisticated way.
hef19898 4y ago
Mol as a chemical unit of measure is part of the first year chemical curriculum at Bavarian Gymnasiums (in three tier school system, those are the ones paving the paths to university). I remember I hated calculating in mol, but then we also expose students to all kinds of units of measure in physics.
chaxor 4y ago
I'm not sure I understand... This seems typical, and perhaps somewhat simplified, for chemistry courses. ?
- exmadscientist 4y ago
  It's the weird units. Students don't like weird units. I remember I once, many years ago now, had a chemistry professor give temperatures in Fahrenheit for a thermodynamics problem, which to solve needed absolute temperatures in Kelvin. On a final exam. The class was not happy! (I didn't care, I both know the conversion and have a calculator that can do it.) He just wrote a table on the board with five entries: the boiling point of water in °F and °C, and the freezing point of water in all three systems. Can you imagine that the students got even more upset at this? He eventually gave in and just did the conversion for everyone. I learned more than one thing that day. Now I'm in industry and completely unfazed by this kind of thing. Sometimes shit's in Fahrenheit, that's just the way it goes, you just have to deal with it. Don't sweat the easy stuff!
  - mjevans 4y ago
    So strange, I remember the Fahrenheit (32, 212) and Celsius (0, 100) numbers, but the precise Kelvin number (which is hard-required for all the good physics equations I've forgotten), that is how much lower than 0C absolute zero is, I only vaguely remember as 272 something. However that's just a well known constant. Very reasonable to include it in the reference dataset.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      273 something. For a good while it was defined as exactly 273.15, but as of a couple years ago it's now based on a specific number of Joules.
      - exmadscientist 4y ago
        The difference between Kelvin and Celsius is still the same. But the Kelvin scale itself has shifted a bit, taking the other scales with it.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Well, okay, they changed Kelvin and Celsius at the same time, so that 273.15/273.16 are preserved, with Celsius based on Kelvin instead of the other way round. But when you're dealing with the freezing point of water and the old version of Celsius for simplicity, then those numbers aren't as correct as they used to be.
        exmadscientist 4y ago
        They're not far off, especially near the triple point of water: https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/2619564/Estimates_Differences_T-T90_2010.pdf/a109650e-6939-3840-974f-cf77f3796e5e https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/2619564/Estimates_Diffe... See also section 2 of the more-or-less authoritative parent document "Mise en pratique for the definition of the kelvin in the SI", available at https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41489682/SI-App2-kelvin.pdf/cd36cb68-3f00-05fd-339e-452df0b6215e https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41489682/SI-App2-kelvin...

nerdponx 4y ago

On the other hand, gradually increasing the complexity and level of detail (including distraction with irrelevant details and like taking away your intuition crutches) is a great way to start learning to apply your knowledge in a more sophisticated way.

hef19898 4y ago

Mol as a chemical unit of measure is part of the first year chemical curriculum at Bavarian Gymnasiums (in three tier school system, those are the ones paving the paths to university). I remember I hated calculating in mol, but then we also expose students to all kinds of units of measure in physics.

chaxor 4y ago

I'm not sure I understand... This seems typical, and perhaps somewhat simplified, for chemistry courses. ?

exmadscientist 4y ago
It's the weird units. Students don't like weird units. I remember I once, many years ago now, had a chemistry professor give temperatures in Fahrenheit for a thermodynamics problem, which to solve needed absolute temperatures in Kelvin. On a final exam. The class was not happy! (I didn't care, I both know the conversion and have a calculator that can do it.) He just wrote a table on the board with five entries: the boiling point of water in °F and °C, and the freezing point of water in all three systems. Can you imagine that the students got even more upset at this? He eventually gave in and just did the conversion for everyone. I learned more than one thing that day. Now I'm in industry and completely unfazed by this kind of thing. Sometimes shit's in Fahrenheit, that's just the way it goes, you just have to deal with it. Don't sweat the easy stuff!
- mjevans 4y ago
  So strange, I remember the Fahrenheit (32, 212) and Celsius (0, 100) numbers, but the precise Kelvin number (which is hard-required for all the good physics equations I've forgotten), that is how much lower than 0C absolute zero is, I only vaguely remember as 272 something. However that's just a well known constant. Very reasonable to include it in the reference dataset.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    273 something. For a good while it was defined as exactly 273.15, but as of a couple years ago it's now based on a specific number of Joules.
    - exmadscientist 4y ago
      The difference between Kelvin and Celsius is still the same. But the Kelvin scale itself has shifted a bit, taking the other scales with it.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Well, okay, they changed Kelvin and Celsius at the same time, so that 273.15/273.16 are preserved, with Celsius based on Kelvin instead of the other way round. But when you're dealing with the freezing point of water and the old version of Celsius for simplicity, then those numbers aren't as correct as they used to be.
        exmadscientist 4y ago
        They're not far off, especially near the triple point of water: https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/2619564/Estimates_Differences_T-T90_2010.pdf/a109650e-6939-3840-974f-cf77f3796e5e https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/2619564/Estimates_Diffe... See also section 2 of the more-or-less authoritative parent document "Mise en pratique for the definition of the kelvin in the SI", available at https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41489682/SI-App2-kelvin.pdf/cd36cb68-3f00-05fd-339e-452df0b6215e https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41489682/SI-App2-kelvin...