Do you have any interesting fun facts or theories related to graduate level chemistry? It’s killing me with boredom this semester and I would love to know something interesting
My personal theory about graduate-level chemistry is that it's a gauntlet designed to winnow the insufficiently devoted. (All you have to do is pass. I promise you that, once you've graduated, nobody is ever going to ask you what grade you got in this class.)
You didn't say what kind of chemistry you do, so here's a fact that you may or many not consider fun: polymer analysis is a key aspect of analytical science in a wide range of industries from petrochemicals to food but, because biopolymers are so complex, they're really difficult to analyze, which means that gummy bears are A MYSTERY to most analytical techniques.
Here's what gummy bears look like to a chromatographer:
You know that orange spike is the really good stuff.
Also, a lot of the techniques we use reliably to analyze polymers don't work very well in space, so if you ever get hungry on Mars, eat your own stash, not the locals'.
