Re: KHAAAAAN!

1

You're going to have to find an alternative pseud for your lad until after the Republican convention. The image of you trying to organic chemistry to Gingrich over breakfast will only be the first of many.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:28 AM
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Shouldn't this post have been titled KHAAAAAAN! !!?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:37 AM
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Shouldn't that be C4H4 with 3 C-C links and 1 C-H link per C atom? The 4 C links want to be far apart, C4H4 would put 3 of them (the C-C links) close together, perhaps too close.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:39 AM
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That looks like a great site for curious adults too, although I haven't watched any of the videos yet. They've got all sorts of stuff available.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:39 AM
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3: C4H10 works, with the C's in a chain. Newt just got to the point where he got that a carbon (to oversimplify) has four potential bonds it can make, and started trying to design molecules, and I had to tell him that you couldn't put that many carbons that close to each other, but that I wasn't sure in any satisfying sense why, or even that I was dead sure I was correct.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:43 AM
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And come to think the molecule he wanted to make was C5h12. Tetrahedron of carbon with a carbon in the middle, and then three open bonds to put hydrogens on on the outer four carbons. I still don't think it works, but I should google to see.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:45 AM
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Goddamn. I was wrong, it works. If he stays interested, I'm going to have to get a textbook and teach myself this shit.

Stupid O-Chem.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:48 AM
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Wouldn't the carbons in neopentane be in the same arrangement as those in diamond?


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:01 AM
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I've been using it for a while now to brush up on and expand my maths competence, and it's fantastic. Khan is a mensch and a gifted teacher.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:01 AM
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8: Indeed it is. Like I said, I go off the rails in chemistry almost immediately.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:06 AM
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7

Yes, neopentane is fine.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:11 AM
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Shouldn't this post have been titled "Stupid Khan Academy"?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:20 AM
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you know what? the material world is really weird, you guys. I never took college-level chemistry and would be at a loss very quickly. it's always been my hope that, having to help my children with their homework year-in and year-out, I will get a chance to slowly re-learn lots of things which I once knew but have forgotten completely. and new things, naturally, one hopes. I wish I felt up to learning mandarin; I'm just soooo busy/ill; I don't see where the time will come from. I've never learned even one non-indoeuropean language! that's lame. nakku learns like 8 languages a year. granted it's sort of his job and all, but still.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:22 AM
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Tinker toys for organic chemistry


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:41 AM
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I actually don't think organic chemistry means very much anymore. These days I only use free-range, grass-fed chemistry raised by small local producers.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:48 AM
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Yeah, my kid was having problems with ratios last week. I was doing a bad job explaining them, so I set him up with the Kahn Academy's lesson. He loved it, and he started exploring with the other lessons.


Posted by: Laura | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:49 AM
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Oh, hey. Is this your first comment here in a long time?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:59 AM
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yeah, I don't have the reflexes for commenting here. You guys type too fast!


Posted by: Laura | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 8:10 AM
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I always loved Apt11d. I havent gone there in a while.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 8:16 AM
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When I first started reading here (during Ogged's first retirement) I remember having the same reaction. But I think the comment rate was faster then.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 8:17 AM
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Shouldn't 17 have said "Laura!"?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 8:24 AM
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I tell you what, this post and thread could sure use some work.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 8:25 AM
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That whole site seems to be at about my level, and I suspect Newt would surpass me in most subjects already. Despite having multiple grad degrees and a professional job, I often think my knowledge of the world is roughly that of a slightly precocious 5th grader.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 10:55 AM
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Also, my first thought was that this was about Bill Simmons. Seriously though that website looks great.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 10:56 AM
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I think organic chemistry is the one bit of very common knowledge that I missed out on completely in my education. I wouldn't know a Maillard from a Grignard if it bit me in the ass.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:13 AM
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Did someone call a chemist? I'll have breakfast with Newt any time you need backup.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:37 AM
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Organic chemistry seems like something that should be teachable through video games. Learning it the traditional route seems tedious.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:43 AM
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You should teach him SMILES, it's a fun little puzzle. The molecule you describe is CC(C)(C)C. The tetrahedron C4H4 is C12C3C1C23


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:44 AM
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You should teach him SMILES, it's a fun little puzzle. The molecule you describe is CC(C)(C)C. The tetrahedron C4H4 is C12C3C1C23

This is crazy moon language. I mean, he likes puzzles, so he'd probably enjoy whatever it is you're talking about, but I don't understand what you said at all.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:46 AM
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It's a language to represent chemical structures as a text string. For more complex molecules there are many ways to describe the same structure. There are also extensions of it (SMARTS, SMIRKS) to cover queries and reactions. There are also machine-only algorithms but these are useful because they're both human and machine readable. Cheminformatics and bioinformatics are the future. Well, the present really.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:52 AM
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Link to something explaining it?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:54 AM
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SMILES = Simplified molecular-input line-entry specification


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:55 AM
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Wikipedia entry under the above name.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simplified_molecular-input_line-entry_specification


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 11:57 AM
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Organic Chemistry?

Carbon nano-technology youtube video 10 minutes

Unlimited beamable free energy for everybody! For the little girl in the Sudan!

Until they kill him


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 6:03 PM
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34: Oh, yeah? How do they get the nanos down to the underwater Dubai space labs? Everyone knows nanos are super-buoyant.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:08 PM
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say more about the differences between patent and copyright and trademark

I'm on the way out the door, but very briefly, generally, and incompletely, patents protect an invention i.e., a process that you can use in many different ways to do useful things. Copyright protects only a particular expression, generally an artistic expression or something that can be closely analogized to it. Put another way, a patent is a property right in "how to do something"; a copyright is a right exclusively in the in the finished product.

This has big differences in some areas. For example, software patents seem often to be bad ideas [so it is argued], because there are property rights imposed in "how to do" things that people do ordinarily and all the time more or less as a natural result of being a software engineer. But if there was no copyright protection for software, you could literally just take someone's finished software product, make a digital copy of it, and distribute it for free. So lots of people don't like software patents at all, but very few people (Trapnel might be one) think that there should be no copyright in software, even if there's a lot of disagreement about what the scope and duration of those rights should be.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:12 PM
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How did that get in this thread?


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:13 PM
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How did that get in this thread?


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:13 PM
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Halford, LLC is not doing well on posting technique this evening. I blame the heroin, and organic chemistry.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 12- 9-11 7:14 PM
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Did somebody say my name?

But seriously, the OP puzzles me a bit, at least this part: Newt got interested, which means that now I have to explain organic chemistry over breakfast. I thought the whole damn point of Khan Academy was that Khan and his buddies explain everything, so you can just say, "I dunno, watch the damn videos and figure it out for yourself, Mommy's having a martini."


Posted by: trapnel | Link to this comment | 12-10-11 10:39 PM
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Yes to 40. This thread is way dead, but seriously, *you* *do* *not* *have* *to* *know* *everything* *your* *kids* *learn*. In fact it is often better if they have some of their own spaces. Just step away from the internet/textbook.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 12-12-11 7:46 AM
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