Last Wednesday in chem lab, after using the magnetic stirrer, I forgot the magnet was still in the beaker, so I accidentally dumped it into the chemical waste storage along with the rest of the contents of the beaker. I heard the sound of it falling in, and then I thought “did I really just do that?” and so later I had to use the retriever to get it back from the chemical waste storage container. But this week, I actually remembered to take the magnet out of the beakers before dumping the contents, hooray!
Magnetic stirrers are super awesome. I wonder what it would be like to stir everything with a magnetic stirrer rather than using a spoon or stick or something. Though of course, for drinkable things, the magnet would have to be used just for drinks, because using the same magnet as ones used for chemistry lab experiments would be dangerous.
This daily flash is an example of the second law of thermodynamics. If anyone tells you are messy or disorganized, you can tell them that you are just obeying the second law of thermodynamics and that your entropy is not at equilibrium and will tend to increase anyway so it is inevitable. Entropy!!
Pretty much the equivalent of RTFQ in this case, in some ways. On the first chem test this semester, I got like ? points off because I didn’t see the value for a constant (not an equilibrium constant, though) at the top of the first page, and I ended up using the wrong one for the whole test. Gosh darn! Also, bringing chem lab equipment into a written exam would probably be pretty interesting to see, actually.
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