Submitted 2 days ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/d9ba637e-afdb-497a-afb8-5b06c3a98732.jpeg
As someone who had done grad school in chemistry…yes. You thought MO theory could explain most things but then there’s reactions that (presumably) go against Woodward-Hoffman rules. Then there’s other rules that go against other theories.
Maybe we just need to solve the Schrodinger equation. Haha.
Organic chemistry in a nutshell.
I would’ve learned chemistry a lot better if someone told me up front that the rules were just heuristics
or dint cram 2 semesters into 1.
That’s true of pretty much everything. As John Von Neumann put it, “Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.”
All models are wrong, some models are useful
weeps in physical chemistry
That shit fucked me up…
A scientific model is valid within its limits of applicability. We will likely never be able to establish natural science models that escape this, even in physics.
And that’s why I dropped Chemistry at the last minute my first semester
My brain would short circuit. The irony of just getting something right to, then, realize it’s complications.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 2 days ago
University general chemistry introduced all these wonderful rules the universe followed and everything suddenly made sense and all was right with the world. Then organic chemistry spent class after class explaining how it was all BS and how every rule had so many exceptions that they weren’t actually rules anymore, and the walks back from class were gloomy and sullen.
iocase@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I went through the same thing with electronics being taught the water model then you’re told to throw that out because AC doesn’t act like water.
I say bullshit! My instructors didn’t understand AC well enough IMO
Once you understand AC well enough you realize it still applies to the water model of electrical flow. Induction is inertia, capacitance is pipe deformation from pressure.
When you slam a valve shut in an old house you make a massive pressure spike (inductive field collapse, flyback voltage spike) which oscillates within a resonant circuit when the pipes absorb that extra pressure by expanding, then releasing that spike back into inertia, which makes a smaller spike back into hoop stress until friction (resistance) saps all of the energy out of the circuit.
You can make a DC-DC boost converter by opening and closing a valve really quickly on a long pipe and feed the pressure spikes into a check valve.
john_lemmy@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
Wish I had you as a teacher
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Aren’t water flow, electrical flow, and mechanical flow all strictly analogous? As in mathematically equivalent, not just similar?
Gust@piefed.social 1 day ago
If it makes you feel better, thats also true in every other field of science. All models are wrong, but some are useful
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 23 hours ago
gen chem was so brutal, many dint pass. or had to retake it. at least not with better than a C.