Monday, September 13, 2010

Another exciting day in the sixth period chemistry class

Today at the beginning of class, Mr. Lieberman handed back our labs and quizzes. The latter he claimed was a gift to get our hopes up, soon to be crushed by our next quiz on Wednesday. And frankly, i wouldn't put it past him. However, at least he was honest.

We then had a very pleasant surprise: a shootout between Ben, Brandon, and Kaitlin, aiming at a target on the screen using Mr. Lieberman's handy-dandy uzzi-- which is a gun for those of us who don't know. The competition went smoothly except for a single misfire, which thankfully did not harm anybody. The result was a tie between Brandon and Ben each with one point, and Kaitlin in second with zero.

now a few definitions:
  • Accurate: hitting what you are aiming for (the target)
  • Precise: being consistent every time; your work is reproducible
Nobody was accurate, because nobody hit the bullseye. However Kaitlin was at least precise, hitting the same spot on the floor every time.

Other than that, today was a typical day in the classroom: lecture notes.

We now (in theory) know the metric system: 1g=10dg=100cg=1,000mg=1,000,000um (micrograms)=1,000,000,000 ng=1,000,000,000,000 pg=.001 kg.
The hierarchy of metric prefixes goes like this:
kilo=1000
(none)=1
deci= 1/10
centi= 1/100
milli = 1/1,000
micro= 1/1,000,000
nano= 1/1,000,000,000
pico= 1/1,000,000,000,000

And there is mega and giga and tera, but if you care about those, you probably know what they mean.

We also learned about temperature: Scientist use celsius, in some cases they use kelvin, we use farenheit. The conversion equation is: t(f)=9/5c+32. The way I remember it is how to get from 100 to 212 using 9/5 and 32: multiple by 9/5 to get 180, add 32 to get 212, maybe that helps.

And last but probably not least, taking measurements: Always estimate one digit past the last readable digit. So that means if you are measuring in millimeters, you want to measure to the point "x". If a box happens to be about 11 mm, plus a tiny bit, you would record 11.1 mm.

If you did not understand this I am embedding the notes for todays lecture here:




YUS, it worked. If you do not understand, comment.

This is Matt P, and always will be.
Michelle T. you have been privileged with the honor of being our next scribe.

No comments: