Recent content by hooli

I just froze some cooking oil (sesame seed) and found the same phenomenon occurred which leads me to think it has something to do with the aliphatic chains in wax and lipids. Any thoughts how a substance could be either transparent of opaque depending on the organization of carbon chains? All...

I was having a glass of wine over candlelight and I noticed that the liquid wax was completely transparent but turned opaque when when the wax solidified. Why does this happen? Clearly, when the molecules reorganize during the freezing phase transition they begin to interact with the light...

I'm trying to understand the nucleophilicity of alkynes, my book lists the pKa's of acetylene (HCCH), ethylene (CH2CH2), and methane (CH3CH3) as 25, 44, and 50 respectively. This leads to the conclusion that HCCH -acetylene- is the strongest acid and hence the weakest base. The book then goes...