Summer reading should be fun, and not science, but the mystery/romance novel I picked up to read at the swimming pool had a great physical chemistry twist in it. The Paid Companion by Amanda Quick is set in the 19th century and features an evil scientist who believes himself to be the next Newton, working to build a weapon that could destroy London. The penultimate scene finds the heroine in the fiend's underground laboratory, where he shows her the device he has built from 3 red stones (it's implied that they are rubies) and an electrical source. The device produces a thin red beam that chars everything in its path -- what could this be? A laser, perhaps? The word never appears, but those in the know, what else could it be? Physical chemistry is everywhere!
Last year my physical chem students and I tried to build a laser (a dye laser, not a ruby laser) from scratch, and I now have a much greater appreciation for what it takes to get a working system. Interested in building your own laser in your basement? Directions can be found at Sam's Lasers
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The Hayflick Limit: why humans can't live forever1 month ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
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Course Corrections4 months ago in Angry by Choice
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Does mathematics carry human biases?3 years ago in PLEKTIX
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A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China5 years ago in Chinleana
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Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM6 years ago in Field Notes
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Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV8 years ago in Rule of 6ix
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WE MOVED!8 years ago in Games with Words
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post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!9 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
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in The Biology Files
The Who, What, When, Where and Why of Chemistry
Chemistry is not a world unto itself. It is woven firmly into the fabric of the rest of the world, and various fields, from literature to archeology, thread their way through the chemist's text.
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