Magic of Chemistry

The problem with sweet things is they have lots of calories and tend to make us gain weight. Wouldn t it be great to have sweets without the calories Of course, this dream has now become reality through the magic of chemistry—artificial sweeteners, or molecules that taste sweet but do not add to the calorie count. Many molecules have a sweet taste—even sweeter than sugar. 

Eord, L.A. Q993) The magic of chemistry. New York Dover. 

The first goal is to demonstrate the magic of chemistry one molecule disappears and another one with different properties appears. The motto here is fun — the demos should be fun, and the demonstrator should be entertaining. The second goal is to prepare the minds of the students for the next lecture. 

There are many experiments that show the magic of chemistry, and which could be found in the Journal of Chemical Education and on the Web. Here is one example followed by some suggestions. 

We keep mentioning the term chemical reaction, which is the process behind the magic of chemistry—molecules react and change into other molecules. Let us look... 

Another aspect of this demonstration is glass coloration, which is associated with the magic of chemistry, with the old art of glass making, and with modem sol-gel technologies. 

The historical name of the reaction between an acid and a base is a neutralization reaction. This term means that we are adding to the acid just sufficient base such that each acid molecule transfers a proton to a base molecule, and there remains no excess of either the acid or the base. That the reaction is indeed over can be ascertained by inserting a few drops of some indicator (the one I have in mind is called phenolphthalein, which is colorless in acid and pink in base [see Retouches section 8.R.4]). Imagine now that I placed an unknown quantity of HCl in water, and I ask you to tell me the quantity of acid I used. What you can do is add a drop of the indicator to the acid, and then add a base of known concentration, say NaOH, in a dropwise manner to the solution. At some point, the base would neutralize all the HCl molecules. Then, when you add one more drop of the base, tiny as you wish, the solution will turn pink all of a sudden. The magic of chemistry at its best Based on the quantity of the base needed to reach this endpoint, you can determine the unknown quantity of the acid in solution. 

It seems that the moral of this story is that the magic of chemistry is playing its tricks again. .. The magic of chemistry creates fantastic ideas. Some turn out to be correct, while others turn out to be false. But, there is no worry scientists will examine any unusual new idea in the most stringent ways until it fails or passes all the possible tests. Chemists, in particular, still remember in their collective consciousness the days of alchemy, where fantasy eventually took over and drove this science almost into oblivion. They will not let their science go astray. 

During these years, I was extremely fortunate to have teaching assistants and demonstrators who shared my enthusiasm. One of them is Racheli Ben-Knaz (at present, Ben-Knaz Wakshlak, in short, Racheli). Others were the demonstrators Calvin DeLano and Yohann Aouat, who were magicians with a flair for entertaining and staging the magic of chemistry. ... 

Sason Well, one of the fun features of the course was the demonstration sessions, which revived the magic of chemistry —one material disappears, and another one appears... 

It opens the course with a wild introductory lecture, which starts with a presentation about love, lust, hate, etc., based on my essay, and argues that all is chemistry and we are chemistry too... This is followed by fun demonstrations of the magic of chemistry. 

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