A laboratory experiment characterized by a whole-class data-pooling approach to generate a data set that can be used to test a model of the influence of ionic strength on electrolyte solubility is described and discussed. The design of the experiment makes efficient use of the laboratory period and releases time for instructional and dialogic…

Powder diffraction is one of the most widely used analytical techniques for characterizing solid state materials. It can be used for phase or polymorph identification, quantitative analysis, cell parameter determination, or even full crystal structure analysis using the powerful Rietveld refinement method. As with much of modern crystallography,…

We present a simple activity based on the liquid-drop model which allows secondary school students to explore the uses of mathematical models and gain an intuitive understanding of the concept of binding energy, and in particular the significance of positive binding energy. Using spreadsheets provided as supplementary material, students can…

The scale-invariant way to analyze two-dimensional experimental and theoretical data with statistical errors in both the independent and dependent variables is revisited by using what we call the triangular linear regression method. This is compared to the standard least-squares fit approach by applying it to typical simple sets of example data…

Literacy requires reading comprehension, and fostering reading skills is an essential prerequisite to and a synergistic enabler of the development of writing skills. Reading comprehension in the chemical sciences not only consists of the understanding of text but also includes the reading and processing of data tables, schemes, and graphs. Thus,…

A simple Excel spreadsheet-based program for simulating atomic emission spectra from the properties of neutral atoms (e.g., energies and statistical weights of the electronic states, electronic partition functions, transition probabilities, etc.) is described. The contents of the spreadsheet (i.e., input parameters, formulas for calculating…

We have designed an exercise suitable for a lab or project in an undergraduate physical chemistry course that creates a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to calculate the energy of the S[subscript 0] ground electronic state and the S[subscript 1] and T[subscript 1] excited states of H[subscript 2]. The spreadsheet calculations circumvent the…

Despite their technological savvy, most students entering university lack the necessary computer skills to succeed in a quantitative analysis course, in which they are often expected to input, analyze, and plot results of experiments without any previous formal education in Microsoft Excel or similar programs. This lack of formal education results…

A project for students in an upper-level course in quantum or computational chemistry is described in which they are introduced to the concepts and applications of a high quality, ab initio treatment of the ground-state potential energy curve (PEC) for H[subscript 2] and D[subscript 2]. Using a commercial computational chemistry application and a…

A simple algorithm was implemented in a spreadsheet program to simulate the circular dichroism spectra of proteins from their secondary structure content and to fit [alpha]-helix, [beta]-sheet, and random coil contents from experimental far-UV circular dichroism spectra. The physical basis of the method is briefly reviewed within the context of…

SpaceShipTwo is a private spaceplane project which is intended for space tourism. Very few details about its construction and flight characteristics are available for the public, but with proper numerical methods some interesting results can be obtained using secondary school mathematics. An exercise about SpaceShipTwo can be used as a…

Fourier transforms are used widely in chemistry and allied sciences. Examples include infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, and mass spectroscopies. A thorough understanding of Fourier methods assists the understanding of microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and diffraction gratings. The theory of Fourier transforms has been presented in this "Journal",…

A general systematic approach is proposed for the numerical calculation of multi-equilibrium problems. The approach involves several steps: (i) the establishment of balances involving the chemical species in solution (e.g., mass balances, charge balance, and stoichiometric balance for the reaction products), (ii) the selection of the unknowns (the…

How useful are the standard deviations per se, and how reliable are results derived from several least-squares coefficients and their associated standard deviations? When the output parameters obtained from a least-squares analysis are mutually independent, as is often assumed, they are reliable estimators of imprecision and so are the functions…

A simple, conceptual method is described for using the spreadsheet scroll bar to find the composition of a system at chemical equilibrium. Simulation of any kind of chemical equilibrium can be carried out using this method, and the effects of different disturbances can be predicted. This simulation, which can be used in general chemistry…