In January 2015, when I was examining the reading lists for Cambridge and reading example personal statements for Natural Sciences, I noticed that a common denominator was the book Why Chemical Reactions Happen, by Keeler and Wothers. I proceeded to read the first two chapters, and was able to easily follow the physics-based reasoning. I therefore listed it on my UCAS personal statement, with the full intention of reading the whole thing before the interview. However, after the first few chapters, the material becomes rather dense (especially with the focus on MO theory). I did endure through it, and made some notes along the way. The notes are quite verbose, because the book itself is quite succinct anyway. I wasn’t asked anything about the book in my interview, which I suppose is fortunate because I would have probably struggled. I started my new role as Head of the Department of Chemistry on 1 October 2018. My aim is to continue the work of Professor John Pyle and his predecessors in fostering the success and ambition of the Department, and in ensuring that it remains an excellent place to work and study. Teaching As I have mentioned elsewhere, for a period I became very interested in gradient tree boosting, particularly XGBoost – a review can be found in this post. One of the best expositions of XGBoost was some informal slides, made by its creator, Tianqi Chen. I think it’s well worth a little bit of effort to understand XGBoost, because it is a very powerful algorithm. Valuation Workshop

What is a chemical reaction? - BBC Bitesize

Because I was considering a career as an actuary, I thought it might be interesting to take one of the exams to get a better understanding of the material. Following the ‘study plan’ from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, I was torn between CT1 (financial maths) and CT3 (statistics). I decided to choose CT1, because I was already confident with the CT3 content, so I thought that I would learn more from studying CT1. Prior to becoming Head of Department, I was for many years our Director of Teaching with overall responsibility for the delivery of the undergraduate chemistry course. My own teaching is in the area of introductory physical and theoretical chemistry e.g. thermodynamics, high-resolution spectroscopy and elementary group theory. ResearchOver the course of my studies, I have amassed a large quantity of notes and summaries. Over time, I will try to upload as many as possible – it’d be nice if they were all in one place. A colour change – If the new chemicals are a different colour from the original chemicals, there will be a colour change. An acquaintance of mine was once having trouble wrapping their head around the Binomial Theorem. As someone who likes maths (and likes teaching people maths), I wanted to come up with an intuitive explanation. CT1 Financial Mathematics Fortunately, this reaction is nonspontaneous at normal temperatures and pressures, it is a highly endothermic reaction. However, nitrogen monoxide is capable of being produced at very high temperatures, and this reaction has been observed to occur as a result of lightning strikes.

Why Chemical Reactions Happen - Free Download PDF Why Chemical Reactions Happen - Free Download PDF

For a given substance, the entropy of the liquid state is greater than the entropy of the solid state. Likewise, the entropy of the gas is greater than the entropy of the liquid. Therefore, entropy increases in processes in which solid or liquid reactants form gaseous products. Entropy also increases when solid reactants form liquid products. I am a co-author of the eleventh edition of Atkins’ Physical Chemistry, I have written two books with my colleague Dr Pete Wothers on general chemistry, and I have written a specialist textbook on NMR. You can find out more about these books below. Atkins' Physical Chemistry The driving force for a reaction is a very important concept. No chemical reaction can happen without it. If we are not sure whether a reaction is feasible or not, one of the first things we should do is to look for a plausible driving force.

Book contents

Entropy increases when a substance is broken up into multiple parts. The process of dissolving increases entropy because the solute particles become separated from one another when a solution is formed. The entropy is increasing because a gas is being produced, and the number of molecules is increasing. Builds on and reinforces students' prior knowledge by expanding on many ideas and examples first encountered at school or college A few years ago I read ‘Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman’, and since then fell in love with Feynman’s style of teaching physics. ‘QED: A Strange Theory’ is a semi-technical book in which Feynman discusses the physics substantively rather than just talking about physics as a discipline. Just to clarify, I have no complaint whatsoever with him talking about physics from a more ‘meta’ point of view, as was done in ‘The Character of Physical Law’. I read the book, and loved it. He doesn’t sacrifice any of his characteristic charm, while still explaining the counterintuitive theory. This book was transcribed from a series of lectures ( available on youtube), so is naturally quite verbose. The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Reasons Why Chemical Reactions Are Important - ThoughtCo 8 Reasons Why Chemical Reactions Are Important - ThoughtCo

Every day in my kitchen there’s reactions happening all around me all the time, from me coming in lighting the stove, baking, cooking. Andrew Burrows, John Holman, Simon Lancaster, Tina Overton, Andrew Parsons, Gwen Pilling, Gareth Price Many useful chemical reactions involve burning fuels to release energy. These reactions heat our homes, power our cars and generate lots of the electricity that we use. ce{AgNO_3} \left( aq \right) + \ce{NaCl} \left( aq \right) \rightarrow \ce{NaNO_3} \left( aq \right) + \ce{AgCl} \left( s \right)\]So far I’ve only done a few chapters of volume 1. I really intended to work through it in its totality at one stage, but I realised that I should use my time before university to learn things other than physics. Many chemical reactions and physical processes release energy that can be used to do other things. When the fuel in a car is burned, some of the released energy is used to power the vehicle. Free energy is energy that is available to do work. Spontaneous reactions release free energy as they proceed. The determining factors for spontaneity of a reaction depend on both the enthalpy and entropy changes that occur for the system. The free energy change (\(\Delta G\)) of a reaction is a mathematical combination of the enthalpy change and the entropy change. Chemical reactions are how new forms of matter are made. While nuclear reactions also may produce new matter, nearly all the substances you encounter in daily life are the result of chemical changes. Unique unified approach helps the reader to see the connections between different ideas and concepts across the traditional divisions of chemistry

The Keeler Group - Why chemical reactions happen

My research interests have been in the area of high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, particularly in the development and application of new techniques. Some of our publications and associated software, as well as older lecture notes from various NMR summer schools, are available on the group web server. It is pertinent to ask ‘why do reactions happen?’ The answer is that a chemical reaction will take place if it leads to a decrease in free energy. Free energy changes can be thought of as the thermodynamic driving forces behind all reactions. This is true not only of chemical reactions, of course. A decrease in energy is the driving force behind all physical processes. For example, apples fall out of trees because they move to a position of lower gravitational energy in this way. By observing chemical reactions, we are able to understand and explain how the natural world works. Chemical reactions turn food into fuel for your body, make fireworks explode, cause food to change when it is cooked, make soap remove grime, and much more. Bubbles – Many chemical reactions you see in the science lab make a chemical which is a gas, so you see bubbles.

Learning objectives

Exciting and entertaining chemical reactions pique interest in science. These types of demonstrations encourage people to ask questions and may lead them into science-related careers. The symbol for free energy is \(G\), in honor of American scientist Josiah Gibbs (1839 - 1903), who made many contributions to thermodynamics. The change in Gibbs free energy is equal to the change in enthalpy minus the mathematical product of the change in entropy multiplied by the Kelvin temperature. Each thermodynamic quantity in the equation is for substances in their standard states, as indicated by the \( Chemical reactions help us understand the properties of matter. By studying the way a sample interacts with other matter, we can learn its chemical properties. These properties can be used to identify an unknown specimen or to predict how different types of matter might react with each other.