How would you describe briefly your own mental modeling of chemistry?

[pellis]

TL;DR

Can you post a non-trivial summary of how you conceive the fundamentals of chemistry, in physico-chemical terms, in max. 150 words, without using AI assistance?

I'm interested to see how others think about chemistry overall, somewhat like mathematician Jacques Hadamard’s famous survey of leading mathematicians and theoretical physicists "An Essay on the Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field" (1945) in which he reported that e.g. Einstein said he sometimes thought kinaesthetically (with his muscles), which makes a sort of sense if you're trying to conceptualise curved spacetime.

Recently, after pondering an unfamiliar area of chemistry, I came to a clearer understanding of my own, which I outlined using only 109 words, and would be interested to learn how others might describe, briefly, their own mental model of the core aspects of chemistry.

I will post mine, written without assistance, following the first three relevant replies here.

 

[Mayhem]

Define "fundamentals of chemistry".

 

[pellis]

Define "fundamentals of chemistry".

Thank you for your interest, Mayhem

That's more or less what I'm asking you to do, rather than bias your approach with my own preconceptions beyond the indications already given above:

- "your own mental modeling"
- "how you conceive [the fundamentals of] chemistry, in physico-chemical terms, "
- "how [others] think about chemistry overall"
- "core aspects of chemistry".

The wording of my post was considered carefully beforehand.

You might like to draft something for yourself about chemistry and then refer back to the question?

It's not meant to be particularly difficult, especially for someone using the handle "Mayhem"

Regards - P

 

[TensorCalculus]

Thank you for your interest, Mayhem

That's more or less what I'm asking you to do, rather than bias your approach with my own preconceptions beyond the indications already given above:

- "your own mental modeling"
- "how you conceive [the fundamentals of] chemistry, in physico-chemical terms, "
- "how [others] think about chemistry overall"
- "core aspects of chemistry".

The wording of my post was considered carefully beforehand.

You might like to draft something for yourself about chemistry and then refer back to the question?

It's not meant to be particularly difficult, especially for someone using the handle "Mayhem"

Regards - P

I still have to agree with @Mayhem that you've defined what you mean by "fundamentals of chemistry" vaguely.

What are you looking for when you mean "fundamentals of chemistry"? It's a highly subjective term... to a Middle school student "fundamentals" may look very different from what someone with a PHD in Chemistry might consider "fundamentals". Someone who has studied chemistry through the lens of physics might see different things as "fundamentals" to someone who has studied it through the lens of biology. And while I know you want different opinions, don't you think this is too much disparity?

Maybe it would do good for you to post your example here, and you can put it in a spoiler tag so that if anyone is worried that looking at your opinion will bias theirs, they don't have to. If I get some idea of what you're looking for, I'll be happy to give writing one a shot. But right now your instructions are a bit... vague.

 

[pellis]

Thank you for your suggestions, TensorCalculus

On reflection, I will leave the challenge in place for a week, to see if anyone has the confidence to offer their own unprompted view of how they think about chemistry.

If I refine the specification further then I will effectively be guiding contributors on how to answer it.

And if I display my own view first then I suspect replies would focus only on differences from my own view (which likely will be many), rather than others’ own consolidated views.

I aim to refine my conception of chemistry by comparing views that may be quite different from my own.

And I hope that others may also find any diversity of views instructive too.

 

[Mayhem]

My advisor explained something to me related to a project involving transition metal complexes of EDTA-type chelators, and mentioned how it builds on the "Irving-Williams series, this really fundamental stuff" so fundamental is a dangerous word.

 

[pellis]

Thanks, @Mayhem – the meaning of fundamental does depend on one's frame of reference, as your example illustrates. But that's part of the point of my question.

As you will know by now, I deliberately left the term open to allow for different personal perspectives – to get a snapshot of how different minds organise the core concepts of chemistry in their own terms, without enforcing a rigid definition.

Referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving–Williams_series for a brief reminder (to be honest, I don’t remember if Irving covered it in his lectures at Leeds †), I see there are three explanations used to explain the Series, ending:

“However, none of the [three] explanations can satisfactorily explain the success of the Irving–Williams series in predicting the relative stabilities of transition metal complexes. A recent study of metal-thiolate complexes indicates that an interplay between covalent and electrostatic contributions in metal–ligand binding energies might result in the Irving–Williams series.”

… which confirms the wisdom of your advisor.

I trust this provides you with an opportunity to expand on that if it is part of your own core understanding of chemistry overall, so I invite you to do so, within 150 words, please.

† Incidentally, Harry Irving was one of our lecturers when he was prof at Leeds during my student years. And Williams wrote a text that we used; years before me, he studied at Uppsala U in Sweden, where I subsequently did my post-doc. Small world!

 

[DaveE]

Since you asked: A mix of horror and aversion. That's my mental model.

I'll spare y'all my diatribe about how poorly chemistry was taught in the 1st required class for freshman undergrads at my school. Hint: first week they started with the Schrodinger equation.

 

[pellis]

@DaveE - Sorry to read that. Someone must have done something right for you to still be involved, and as a prominent contributor too - though I expect you have much deeper insights now?

 

[DaveE]

@DaveE - Sorry to read that. Someone must have done something right for you to still be involved, and as a prominent contributor too - though I expect you have much deeper insights now?

Nope. I'm not involved in Chemistry at all. I understood it better when I was in HS. My undergrad experience is best described as triage. Chemistry was the first to get kicked to the curb. Also, only 1 year was required, and for freshman all classes were graded pass/fail. So I passed (barely) and moved on. Nothing in my subsequent career required me to know any chemistry.

 

[berkeman]

@pellis -- @DaveE only uses chemistry to fabricate frozen cylinders of fuel for chemical lasers. They have excited atomic states frozen in place so that when the laser couples a primer beam to those states, the fuel lases like a stick of dynamite...

(Dave is the dark-haired young undergrad standing next to his roommate Val Kilmer at Caltech)

 

[DaveE]

Hollywood has no idea how dull class IV lasers look in practice. No, sorry, you pretty much don't get to see the laser beam for real. Although there are stories from the old days, notable for their deviation from normalcy.

PS: Pretty much every time you see a picture of a laser beam, it's fake. Unless you are in a smoke filled room, there shouldn't be enough scattering to see it.

 

[berkeman]

No, sorry, you pretty much don't get to see the laser beam for real.

The video did not capture the labbies smoking in the lab before the full meeting. Let's remember that this was Caltech in the '70s...

 

[Borek]

you can still get some decent images with a bit of fog and a 5 mW laser pointer :)

 

[pellis]

Interesting history (my bad too, to a small degree), but I do hope some of you will pluck up the courage to answer on-topic. in the next few days, please...

 

[Borek]

TBH the idea is so vague I feel like my every attempt would yield just some trivial, useless truism.

 

[pellis]

@Borek As a mentor, how would you convey your enthusiasm for chemistry to an intelligent freshman physics or biology student, by trying to tell them how you think what chemistry is/does/involves/...., with a little imagination?

Perhaps try writing something for yourself without even intending to post it, and see what you come up with? As you probably know, the hardest thing about writing is making a start.

You'll probably all laugh at how simple but logical it appears when I finally post my own effort. But I'm now retired and have nothing to lose (except my remaining hair and teeth ).

 

[mjc123]

Maybe a bit of an over-simplification, but:

Chemistry is about the manipulation of electrons. A chemical transformation involves changing the bonding arrangement of atoms to each other by changing the arrangement of the electrons around and between the atoms, e.g. by ionisation or the formation of covalent bonds. Even weaker but chemically significant interactions such as H-bonding and vdW forces are related to the distribution of electrons around nuclei.

Transforming one element into another by nuclear reactions requires higher energies than are usual for what are considered chemical processes, and is not generally considered as "chemistry" (even when it adds new elements to the periodic table). Conversely, low-energy processes that do not alter the distribution of electrons in molecules are considered physical rather than chemical.

 

[pellis]

@mjc123 Congratulations - You've clearly understood the sort of answer I have been hoping for, and well within the suggested word count.

As it bears similarities to my own, I've just posted mine on an unrelated site to get a time stamp in order to avoid being accused of plagiarising the answer(s) posted here.

 

[mjc123]

In the immortal words of Basil Fawlty: "A satisfied customer! We should have him stuffed!"

 

[berkeman]

and well within the suggested word count.

Please avoid making a point of this, professor. It is a bit of an arbitrary constraint given your request, and IMO will not help your quest to get good responses. Thanks.

 

[pellis]

@berkeman Thank you for your advice. As you may appreciate, I was aiming to avoid long rambling accounts that might be thorough ["TL;DR"] but less likely to convey a sharp focus.

But at this point I will be pleased to see any more contributions.

Incidentally, the nearest I got to being appointed professor was as the British equivalent to visiting professor, but in management science rather than chemistry. When I post my own answer I will explain its origin, briefly, as an attempt to fill a conceptual gap while updating insights long past, having not been a practising research chemist in my later career.

 

[Mayhem]

Broadly, chemistry is the study of quantitative results through qualitative models.

Spectroscopy, thermodynamics, and kinetics are largely interpreted through very simple models but they work in day-to-day experimental research.

I find those who entertain the quantitative aspect rigorously for a sufficiently long time become indistinguishable from physicists specialized in the same areas.

 

[pellis]

I find those who entertain the quantitative aspect rigorously for a sufficiently long time become indistinguishable from physicists specialized in the same areas.

@Mayhem Yes - good point about becoming "indistinguishable from physicists..."

 

[Borek]

Broadly, chemistry is the study of quantitative results through qualitative models.

To some extent that's a definition of every science built around measurable properties.

Yes, physics tends to be more rigorous, but whenever spherical cow approximation is good enough it fits the same box. Thing as basic as Ohm's law is difficult to show experimentally as real resistance changes with temperature and current density, so simple experiments based on batteries/incandescent bulbs don't work.

 

[sbrothy]

@DaveE - Sorry to read that. Someone must have done something right for you to still be involved, and as a prominent contributor too - though I expect you have much deeper insights now?

Yeah, I also imagined some really horrendous teachers or bad sessions. Good to hear you're hanging in there.

 

[TensorCalculus]

OK I get the sort of idea you're going for.

Since you seem to want varied views, I'll give you mine. My chemistry knowledge is basically nothing so it's not going to be as well-informed of an opinion as some of the big brains here, half of it is probably incorrect, but hopefully you find something useful in it :)

In a way, to me (fundamental - though this word can have different meanings) Chemistry is sort of like a high-level programming language. Like python, but for the sciences.
That probably sounds quite weird, so let me explain:

The Chemistry I've learnt so far is mostly about how different types of atoms interact, how electrons behave and how this ends up in chemical bonds, chemical reactions... etc.
Chemists seem to establish sets of rules for all of these phenomena: rules for what elements fall into what classes, rules for how orbitals fill themselves with electrons, rules for what the reactions between elements look like. I can then use these rules to make deductions about other things. I might use the rules that Chemistry have given me to figure out how a certain biological system works, for example the science of amino acids... peptide bonds... that sort of stuff.
Now: I could have figured out the science of amino acids with physics too. Instead of drawing them as beautiful skeletal diagrams and use the laws of chemistry, I could have use the laws of physics to figure out what would happen. I could use calculations and quantum mechanics to figure out that $HCl+NaOH\rightarrow H_2O+NaCl$ but a chemist has already done the work for me and made a rule for that: acid + base $\rightarrow$ salt + water. In that way, chemistry is like a high-level programming language: instead of having to spend ages writing tons of machine code to print something into the terminal (doing lots of maths to figure out how 2 substances will react) I can just use the python function print() (use the rules chemistry has given us). Especially for people like biologists, chemistry is a way of analysing systems easily and quickly without having to worry too much about what's going on behind the scenes: someone's already done the work to figure that out for them (exactly how high level programming languages are! People who write python can write code to do things like print in just a few characters: but someone has done the work (write a lot of machine code etc) to make that the case. But the python writers don't have to worry about what's going on behind the scenes most of the time)

For those who are reading this and cringing: sorry . Please do correct any mistakes .

 

[pellis]

Chemistry is sort of like a high-level programming language. Like python, but for the sciences.

Sure - interesting way to put it.

... mostly about how different types of atoms interact, how electrons behave and how this ends up in chemical bonds, chemical reactions... etc.

Yep - precisely!

Chemists seem to establish sets of rules for all of these phenomena: rules for what elements fall into what classes, rules for how orbitals fill themselves with electrons, rules for what the reactions between elements look like. I can then use these rules to make deductions about other things.

At the research frontier some of the rules are still developing.

I could have use the laws of physics to figure out what would happen. I could use calculations and quantum mechanics to figure out that $HCl+NaOH\rightarrow H_2O+NaCl$ but a chemist has already done the work for me and made a rule for that: acid + base $\rightarrow$ salt + water.

At some points - like Pauli working out the exclusion principle - it's an interplay between physics, maths and chemistry - which really are almost arbitrary classifications at times like that, IMO.

Especially for people like biologists, chemistry is a way of analysing systems easily and quickly without having to worry too much about what's going on behind the scenes:

Sometimes - but on other occasions, like when Peter Mitchell was doing his Nobel Prize-winning work identifying how life captures energy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemiosmosis - transforming the understanding of bioenergetics, I think he probably did need to to worry about what's going on "behind the scenes" in terms of the electron transport chain, proton pumps and electrochemical gradients, not just the chemical surface scenery of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and its diphosphate (ADP).

For those who are reading this and cringing: sorry . Please do correct any mistakes .

No cringe; comments but nothing to quibble about; and pleased that you "got it" at some point. Thank you.

 

[sbrothy]

Also it feels a little like algebra the way you have to balance your chemical equations.

 

[pellis]

Also it feels a little like algebra the way you have to balance your chemical equations.

@sbrothy @TensorCalculus

Take a look at quantum chemistry, then - it's nothing but equations: from calculus and Lie algebra to group theory and beyond, eventually realised as computer programs - mainly FORTRAN, C AND C++ - and of interest to TensorCalculus - Python,: so you might consider Python at two levels in chemistry.