Recent content by robynmc

I was confusing map and territory I think. Valence bond theory for visualising structure, ok. Thanks!

I think it's binding energies that have confused me. it looked like s orbital shouldn't be able to move into a p orbital, but it seems there's states available where it can

So an endothermic process caused by electronegativity or something added, and as binding energy increases the configuration can change direction to absorb energy before reaching the ionisation energy? Configuration as available states before ionisation energy is reached? The promotion energy is...

Recommendations are far superior to searching information swamps in my experience, so thanks, very sincerely.I suppose my interest is in the energy transition, organic chem is just a big gap I'm trying to fill. I realize it's a physics forum, never used to matter, didn't seem anyway. Pleasant...

Coursera has gone subscription and I've lost track of what's available. Mitopencourseware and khan academy type stuff

Thanks I'll see if I can find them. If hybridisation isn't a mechanism of energy exchange, can I think of hybridisation as the nuclear charges exchanging "influence" on... the electron cloud, or probability density, or whatever. So I'm looking at electron receptacles rather than the electrons...

Eigenstates will be eigenvectors and eigenvalues I suppose, which is more or less where I left off in maths many years ago. Would you recommend a flurry of revision and a bit of further digging into this? Can I get anywhere with fairly superficial linear algebra?

Please help, very lost in khan academy! 1)The sp1, sp2 and sp3 hybridisation states look like dimensional i.e. a line, a plane and a xyz coordinate system, but I don't remember my resource explicitly stating this as the case. Is it a safe assumption/intuition? Or more objectively the case - not...

Thanks!

Trying to work out what i want to know, as I say, but for example I've heard it suggested high grade plastics are an end to which the rest of oil refining is almost just an economy of scale. Is it feasible that scaled up chem labs will ever displace refinery sources entirely? Even in principle

Could you help me find resources about this? I searched synthetic industrial plastics and it didn't return much. I'm not that sure how to frame the question, what the question is. I'm interested to know how/whether plastics and other polymers and so on might be mass produced from simpler forms...

I'm learning some organic chemistry for general interest/literacy, mostly khan academy and popular science books. I have some higher maths, not much. Older than you, I bet.