Recent content by Mayhem

Methylation properties (alkylation in general) is a huge hazard in chemical reagents. Good alkylation agents are typically dangerous as an intrinsic side-effect of their desired purpose. From what I could find, dimethyl carbonate is a safe(r) alternative but also reported as weak, so yield...

Hopefully any drugs used in a medical context have been quality checked to shreds.

Chemistry is difficult to self-teach since it's highly experimental. I'd suggest pursuing a degree if it's feasible, because self-teaching is not nearly as easy as many think.

Probably because more people drink alcohol.

A scientist and an accountant schedule a meeting for 8 o' clock. The accountant shows up the next day at 8:00 AM and waits a few minutes, wondering where the scientist is. At 8:22 AM, the scientist shows up and acts like nothing is up. The meeting proceeds, and they schedule a new meeting the...

From a chemistry standpoint, the classics tert-butyllithium and methyl mercury are two of the nastiest reagents I can think of. I'd be willing to work with t-BuLi but I stay far away from skin penetrating heavy metals reagents.

There is obviously a hard limit to everyone's cognition ability. But I'll argue that very few ever find that limit. We got what we got - but using these tools efficiently is a skill, and can produce significant results. Logical structured thinking, for one, is a skill that nearly everyone can...

Are there good textbooks which explain electricity in a chemical context better. i.e. for use in measurements (cyclic voltammetry and others), the physics (suitable for a chemist) of electricity in solutions and how solutions can be modelled in circuit diagrams. I have some knowledge of...

It's a tedious feeling to finally have ambitions of doing a Ph.d, but your last semester grades were so bad that even a perfect run of good grades from now on is likely to affect my future application.

Advanced organic chemistry feels like learning 'shapes' in kindergarten - but you're deeply mentally challenged.

Position of elements in the periodic table to easily recall electron confinguration.

Consider how many times you have had to explain to regular people how something can simultaneously depend on multiple variables (and be optimized therein), and then consider if they are the same type of person that cannot grasp why they had to learn about multivariable functions at some point...

Simple molecular dynamics can probably be done if everything is hardcoded.

Molecular Orbitals and Organic Chemical Reactions Reference Edition (Ian Fleming*) Probably only going to use the first 100 pages or so. Great semi-quantitative treatment of MO theory for people who have a life. *not the James Bond author.

This protection group is acid sensitive. Step 2 in B negates step 1.