Day 251: Physics frustration and knowledge entropy!

You know, I forgot how annoying Physics is. I've been doing my assigned problems for about 2 hours now. And I still don't get them. UGH. I mean, I get the problems in the book, but then the numbers (within the problem) change and then the math gets fuzzier. F-you fuzzy numbers! Grrrr...

I was much more productive today than I have been in days past. I think it helps when I haul my butt out of my room (and away from my computer and this evil thing called the internet) and sprawl all over the living room. Here is a fun science analogy.

Entropy is a scientific term describing the disorder of things. Things (in nature, life, and science) occur spontaneously (naturally, without at input of energy/work) the more disorder there is. Therefore, based on the disorder of the living room (as a result of books, papers, writing utensils, etc) ... I'm going to say the flow of knowledge is spontaneous. And I suppose that last bit was a bit of a stretch but hey, the analogy worked!

A picture I took using my phone (of my entropy!)...

Knowledge! Whee!

Day 054: Enthalpy, entropy and (Gibbs free) energy

I thought I would take a break from studying and attempt to blog more. I really do apologize for not blogging as much because this really is the sole means of communication between us so I reiterate, sorry.

Our test tomorrow is math-heavy. A lot of formulas and concepts are tied together. I know them all, it's just a matter of sorting everything into its appropriate little box and then after that, fitting all the boxes together to make a pretty picture.

Just to give you an example (feel free and skip to the next paragraph in case this bores you) ... Enthalpy is the amount of heat given off (or taken) by a system.

Looks like everything is in proper disorder...

Entropy (the amount of disorder/disorganization within the system) relies on enthalpy -- the amount of heat tells us what kind of reaction it is and other cool tidbits. Gibbs Free Energy is a combination of enthalpy and entropy and it tells us how much energy is "free"/left over to do actual work (e.g., how gasoline works/is used in the piston of a car).

I know, it all sounds pretty dry and random but it's pretty cool how everything relates to one another. However, it is also a little overwhelming to have to keep all these concepts and deltaH, deltaS, and deltaG's straight. Much less the different kinds of deltaG. No worries though, I've got a handle on it, just wanted to keep you all in my chemical loop, haha.