SYLLABUS

The lab instructor will determine the groups and partners for all lab experiments.

You will find that I do not provide detailed lab handouts that tell you exactly how to do an experiment. In the lab you will find general information about the goal of the experiment, but it is up to you to decide how to do your experiment. And it is your experiment; you should have the pleasure of deciding how you want to do it. If I tell you how to do the experiment, you won't have as much fun because you'll be trying to get results that please me. All I care about is that you design an experiment that really measures what you want to measure, and that you estimate the precision of your measurement. Of course, I'll be there whenever you want to talk to me about your experiment. And in that regard, let me warn you that I am very opinionated and hold very definite ideas about the way things should be done in the lab. This is an inevitable consequence of spending twenty five years of my life doing chemical research. My job is to use my experience to help you avoid bad ideas and mistakes. Nevertheless, if you believe an idea you have is right, don't drop it just because I say it's wrong. Stick with it until you understand why it is wrong, or until you can prove to me that it is right.

You should keep some organized record of the work you do in lab, but I want you to decide how you want to do that; I am not going to grade your personal notebook. I will from time to time call you into my office and ask you to answer questions about your lab work; you can bring in your notebook and refer to it during these interviews. Therefore you need to record information in your notebook so that several weeks later you will be able to look at it and know what you did in the lab. By the way, you do not need to write down a detailed experimental procedure in the notebook; instead, refer to the lab textbook where you found the procedure. If you modify the procedure or apparatus, be sure to record the modifications in your notebook and lab report.

IGNORE material stored below
Groups will be rotated every two weeks on Monday. On the Monday before the new groups are assembled, there will be an in-class quiz with one problem based on homework. If every member of the group gets the problem right, one additional bonus point will be added to the previous week's quiz for every member of the group.

Class               How much air? Propagation of Error
                            Heat of Fusion of Ice
Class    Freezing Point Depression of Water by NaCl (temperature, conductivity)
   Partition Coefficient of Acetic Acid

Pairs                     Enthalpy of Neutralization (solution calorimetry)
                           Bomb calorimetry
                             Real Gas Behavior (critical state apparatus)
                            Gas Constant by Electrolysis
                            pKa of a acid-base indicator (visible spectroscopy)
                            Effect of Ionic Strength on Acetate Buffers

                            Gas thermometry: Determination of Absolute Zero
                            Heat Capacity Ratio of Gases
                            Refractive Index using Lasers
You may work in the lab at night, but you must not work alone! The person in the lab with you does not have to be a member of the physical chemistry class.

The sad case of Dr. Isaiah Norman http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/Jonny-Quest-The-Invisible-Monster-1/wlsSrE6Cib/