Category Archives: Quiz time!

The heaviest naturally occurring element on Earth?

Posted on May 15, 2014 by stu

OK, let’s make sure that we’re clear on the question first. By ‘heaviest’, I mean the element with the largest atomic number. By ‘naturally occurring’, I mean pretend that humans have never existed on this planet (probably would have turned … Continue reading →

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Friday fun: Selling yourself

Posted on June 14, 2013 by stu

Over the last few days I’ve been updating some of the slides I use in my ‘Scientific publishing and communicating chemistry’ talk. One of the slides looks at five general-chemistry journals and pulls some quotes from their websites that they … Continue reading →

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Screw stereochemistry!

Posted on May 8, 2013 by stu

I saw my former PhD boss (Fraser Stoddart) over the weekend and he had a challenge for me. And I can’t resist a challenge. He gave me a copy of the midterm he had just given his grad class and … Continue reading →

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The smallest chiral hydrocarbon?

Posted on September 9, 2011 by stu

Last week I posed the following question: What is the lowest molecular weight hydrocarbon that is chiral? (A couple of restrictions — isotopes don’t count, so no deuterium or 13C, and no conformational stereoisomers, I’m looking for stable enantiomers at … Continue reading →

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Pop quiz #1

Posted on September 2, 2011 by stu

In my former life I taught organic chemistry — sometimes to classes of 300. A significant fraction of the students were ‘pre-med’ which for those of you who don’t know, roughly translates as, ‘I couldn’t give a crap about chemistry, … Continue reading →

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