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True, but a lot of chemistry is mostly math too, and I flunked organic chemistry the first time. I think its because there is some domain knowledge involved in
by dxbydt 12y ago
True, but a lot of chemistry is mostly math too, and I flunked organic chemistry the first time. I think its because there is some domain knowledge involved in these subjects, which you have to actually care about. I don't particularly care which element has how many isotopes and what the valency is and how many other elements it can bond with, though I did memorize the atomic weights of all the elements in the periodic table and Avogardo number and few such stats. Those things helped a little, because I was ultimately able to pass my chemistry exams just by solving the numerical stuff and ignoring the chemical stuff. I handled physics in same fashion . There's something called the distance equation, where you can express the distance travelled by particle in terms of velocity and acceleration. We had to simply memorize that and use it in problems. I forgot what it was in the exam. So I just derived it from definitions. The teacher was quite surprised, because at that stage we hadn't been taught calculus, so how did I derive it ? Well, I had solved calculus problems by myself, so I just did this - http://pastebin.com/T6PrePh8 http://pastebin.com/T6PrePh8
These things helped me get by.
- delian66 12y ago>> I forgot what it was in the exam. So I just derived it from definitions. Hah, I did the same :-) ... unfortunately I also forgot the conventional names, and just used 's' (for speed) instead of 'v', and 'd' (for distance) instead of 's'. My teacher did not object the derivation at all, but told me that the results are wrong, because of the letters used ... Well, point taken - now, I try to pay extra attention and memorize idiosyncrasies like naming conventions ... it saves time when communicating with others.
- mirchiseth 12y agoThat reminds me of a sessional (mid semester exam in India) when I got confused on speed of light being 3x10^8 m/s or 3x10^9 m/s. Strange are the ways of mind. I knew the relation between c and electric constant and magnetic constant. So derived it from that.
- cli 12y agoOrganic chemistry is the least or one of the least math-intensive chemistry subjects at the undergraduate level.
- nnq 12y agoOrganic chemistry and biochemistry are very different from physics, but chemistry is a very large field and these are just a small part of it. You should have been exposed to physical chemistry or computational chemistry or maybe even quantum chemistry or analytical chemistry, if your are mathematically inclined. ...but unfortunately they are considered very advanced topics in most learning institutions, even if one could start with them from the very beginning, instead of "classical chemistry". And more unfortunately, after the tedium of "classical chemistry", what you are presented with next are very boring aspects of "organic chemistry" or "biochemistry".
- bostik 12y agoAiieee, physical chemistry. That thing approaches pure evil. The chemistry department in the university I studied at required 4 courses of physical chemistry. The introductory course was bad enough - the course had mandatory practice sessions, where assistants were at hand to aid with the supposedly trickier bits. Each session was 1h45m straight. 5 weeks in, there was a supposedly simple exercise. When nobody at the class got even past the initial hurdles in the first 15 minutes, the assistant decided to show how it's done. He failed to finish the calculations in the remaining 90 minutes ... and he knew how the steps went. Eventually I changed my major from chemistry to CS. EDIT: btw, the assistant in question was a post-grad so lack of domain knowledge was not the reason.