Step aside Rumford, canon's are boring compared to these inventive tests of the equivalence of work and heat. Slightly different top-10 list here, please enjoy:
10. High speed magnets for a spiffy homemade induction heater. (how can you not love spinning magnets?)
9. A nice way to use lead shot that is amenable to calculation.
8. Short and sweet with ball bearings.
7. This beautiful model of the Joule apparatus in action (no calculations).
6. Take that Joule : the Action lab strikes again by boiling water with a blender.
1-5. Seriously how can you top this: Cooking steak and chicken by slapping it! Props for actually eating the steak.
Over the years of teaching Thermo, my students and I have found various pitfalls when hunting for helpful thermo resources online. There's a lot of good stuff out there too (maybe another top 10 post ), like Chris Cramer's well-planned and presented videos. I am guilty of trying ideas that didn't work in my classes, or explaining concepts in a way that I regretted later, but in a college class you can fix it in the next class meeting. But if wonky Thermodynamics is enshrined online, it just sits there waiting to cause trouble . So with that, here are my top 10 dangers of learning thermo online:
10. Minor misconceptions and thermodynamic slang abound. For example frictional heating and electrical heating actually start out as frictional work and electrical work. These and many more small bad habits are fine for experienced folks, but are tough on new learners.
9. There are still sources that use E and U interchangeably for the internal energy.
8. Fake science videos, which are just plain weird. The most common is to rig up fake perpetual motion machines that rely on hidden motors.
7. Closely related, and even weirder, are the conspiracy videos that often feature warped Thermodynamics. Aliens sipping lattes in their moon base are not hiding great secrets of Thermodynamics.
6. Everybody has their own blend of classical chemical thermo and stat-mech, and getting them in the right balance and order for a first experience in chemical Thermodynamics is no small task. Online sources often assume different amounts of stat-mech and that can throw off new learners.
5. Thermodynamic standard states are not STP.
4. Even the pros can get mixed up on system and surroundings, and this can show up online.
3. Major misconceptions are out there too. The basis of ice skating, for example, is one of the most incorrectly taught pieces of physical chemistry out there. It's neither frictional heating (errm excuse me, frictional work) nor pressure melting, but rather we ice skate because ice has a nanometer thick layer of liquid water.
2. Queasy with 'quasistatic'. Some sources really double down on the term 'quasistatic' with fervor, and it only creates confusion. Reversibility is a clean, robust, and direct way to teach thermo and it lets you assume friction is 0 whenever you feel you need it. I don't argue the distinction, but I'm not convinced the distinction is useful esp. when first learning Thermo.
1. The First Law must be written ΔU = q+w . Even IUPAC specifies q + w. Surprisingly many online sources still use q-w . If you are feeling like thermodynamics is a fire hose at full blast, the last thing you want to find when looking for help is some one suddenly switching signs on you.
Sorry, not sharing links. None of us are perfect and I've had my share of goofs and hope to be forgiven for them. This list is offered in all humility. So for the 10 people on the internet who might read this, just take it as cautionary tales, nothing more...
I took the summer off of the old 'top 10' blog, but let's dive back in. This fall I am mostly in-person, but we're all doing more remote and online teaching, and we all want to try to up our game. Top 10 tech tips for the fall:
10. OBS beginner tip: for a really professional look, crop your windows; hold down option/alt key and drag.
9. OBS beginner tip: add a headset as a second mic or make it the system mic.
8. Timed quizzes in moodle (https://kb.swarthmore.edu/display/MOODLE/Creating+a+timed+quiz+or+exam+in+Moodle)
7. Zoom grab bag: Make your own Zoom background: landscape best. Add lighting to your recording space. Get all the Zoom updates. Create a semester-long single zoom link. Record to the cloud.
6. Grading on gradescope for the first time and finding it promising. (all credit to a few colleagues who got me started)
5. I borrowed a basic Wacom Intuos writing tablet from my son, and it's surprisingly useful. For now I prefer whiteboarding in Illustrator but I have more to explore. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.
4. iMovie is not fun to import in to. It rejects many mp4 formats from many sources, causing a lot of headaches. Suggest to find a source (iphone, etc) where you don't need to get bogged down on converting the mp4. Thinking of switching to Hitfilm.
3. FastX: off topic but helpful, turns your browser in to a secure remote desktop for a remote linux box. (all credit to our IT folks)
2. OBS Beginner Tip: nice way to put PPT in your OBS scene; nice in other situations too; good for running your slideshow in the ppt window; Go to "Slide Show" ---> "Set Up Show" then select "Browsed by an Individual (Window)"
1. Couldn't decide on a number 1. Maybe it should be the espresso maker that keeps me lucid, or the macbook pro which is more precious than air right now. In all fairness it should be my students who are really impressive in going along with this new tech-enabled learning transition. Who knows, but good wishes to all of you on this journey.
Since we are sadly AFS (away from spectrometer), what better time to reflect on the safety tricks of the trade, the oral history that we all know (none of these will be new to you) but never seems to get properly recorded? Legal disclaimer : this is an informal and incomplete list and should not be mistaken for any actual, serious peer-reviewed safety guide. Here are my top 10:
10. On the lighter side, dust bunnies abound in any NMR room and they are sneezy for some, and can even be slippery.
9. Bring a jacket - don't catch cold in the NMR room.
8. Ever feel a touch of vertigo perched up there on the stairs? Use the rails even if you don't need 'em.
7. Are loads of old tubes slowly out-gassing in the NMR room?
6. Removing the parafilm by hand is a sure-fire way to break the tube and get a cut.
5. Remember, most new users don't know to not lean on the magnet/cryostat. (credit for this important one: @BrianBreczinski )
4. Classic one, and admittedly pretty well known, but important to take gloves off so as not to transfer experiments to the keyboard. Also, NMR tends to be the central instrument in a chem. dept. and the majority of the department rotates through that doorknob, keyboard, sample holder/changer, etc. This sentiment was pre-covid and was initially geared more toward traditional flu season. I try to (and do) often wash hands both before/after spectrometer time.
3. A glass tube doesn't belong in one's shirt or pants (or any other) pocket.
2. Hey College Profs : all credit to modern medicine, a wake up call for me is that we have to be cognizant that there are students with pacemakers (for example, I and a colleague at another PUI have experienced this), implants, pumps, and more. I have a way to handle this, but I'm not qualified to give legal advice so I'll leave it at that.
1. My biggest pet peeve. Gently grasp the middle of the tube (NOT the top) and insert the tube slowly in to the holder by pointing it AWAY from your body. I see NMR pros not only hold the top of the tube, but actually insert it in to the holder in the direction of their wrist! Yikes.
So what is your "insider NMR safety tip"?
I love tech and computers, but honestly this has been a humbling wakeup call for me to get in to more technology. There are an enormous number of tools out there - so this is just what I landed on and it's the tip of the iceberg. This will change over the semester, but I need to pause and look back . For reference I'm on Apple OS for a laptop and an iPad.
10. Email. Back to basics - we've always used it - how can we use it better? Still thinking about this one.
9. Quicktime can record - don't forget!
8. Moodle. I'm not a power user, but it's time to use more of its features.
7. Mediaspace. 'Internal youtube' for managing and storing multimedia content for your courses. I think they knew faculty would be the end-users because it has a pretty simple interface, but is still pretty powerful. :-)
6. Youtube and more. It is hard to plug in some one else's video to your course, but there are valuable options here. I'm still under-utilizing this, but it will be part of my solution. A gripe: in pchem a lot of videos using older sign conventions.
5.Explain Everything (iPad). Good whiteboarding/recording software for the iPad. I like the finger controls for resizing and moving things around. Great for recording doing example problems and mini-lectures.
4. Smartphone/ipad for in-lab videos. How to do labs remotely? Prop up your iphone/ipad up against something and work away.
3. Zoom Part 1. If you have the license to get a personal link then you can just have an open zoom meeting for office hours, recitations and more. Good trial runs so far. And you can record your sessions.
2.Zoom Part 2. So Zoom plays nicely with your iPhone or iPad. I fire up Zoom on the laptop and then share the iPad wirelessly. So if you have whiteboarding software on the iPad (Explain Everything, etc.) you can now whiteboard over Zoom.
1. OBS. (link here) OMG what a lifesaver. This is recording and/or broadcasting and currently I'm using it to record. I tried another one (won't name) and it was less powerful and was unstable on iOS. Huge thx to Henry, my resident tech guru in my home for encouraging me to try this. Placing multiple windows in one scene looks pretty snazzy. Powerful, yet easy for beginners - you can be running after watching just 2 or 3 intro videos on youtube. Easy to put your face video in one corner while doing other things.
Final thought: there is no one right way - do what works for you. Borrowing advice I heard recently, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Setting our work to print is an awesome burden for recording the advancement of knowledge, and writing well is important to the longevity of your work. Never mind article half-lives of a few years, I once had a reason to cite an 1815 Gay-Lussac paper because of his exploration of network solids (and hopefully contributing to his h-index). So write like somebody will cite you in 200 years!
Writing is a journey - so many of these sins were pointed out by kind colleagues. Here are MY top 10 crutches of scientific writing :
10. The core dump. This truly must be the most sacred of scientific writing crutches, the one we are most afraid to let go of (and may never). Now, I'm no heretic and you and I probably won't ever stop using the 'core dump'. But if a passage I wrote reads like a briar patch, and the more I mess with it the worse it gets, then that's my sign that I need to start over with...ugh...an outline.
9. Factorology. I dare you : can you use only one acronym per sentence?
8. Supplemental Info (SI). If you're like me, you probably minimize writing up some SI to save time. I truly believe this is something we all need to take to heart. The SI is free to readers, and maybe we should be trying to do more with SI. Putting richer content like background information in your SI can help people who can't afford the article, help reach a broader audience, etc. If you are starting to read other people's SI more (I am), then think what people would like to find in your SI too.
7. The Oxford comma. That's all.
6. This. Starting sentences with 'this' is such a great crutch, but it's one of the biggest things I proof-read for. If you're using 'this' to mean 'everything I wrote in the last sentence', then maybe look for another segue.
5. "It turns out that". I hear this phrase in talks more than in writing, but it deserves to make the list. I've come to realize (i.e., it turns out) that when I use this phrase I'm honestly being lazy: I'm glossing over something that I should be saying more precisely. We use this phrase when we want to skip the details and get to the good stuff. It is so tempting to use this phrase in the spirit of the 'storytelling' of science. But I think it leaves readers/audience unsatisfied and I've been making an effort to stop using this phrase.
4. Yoda. A film buff told me that 37 is the most common number in movies. I've never been able to watch movies the same way again, and now neither will you. And once you see the number of sentences in the literature that start with a preposition and end in a verb, you'll realize how widespread this crutch is too. Quick example: replace "In order to optimize the data, double the number of scans were taken." with "The number of scans was doubled to optimize the data." (did you read the first one in a Yoda voice?)
3. There may be only one Commander Data, but the word data is plural. Replace "the data is" with "these data are" or go with "the data set is". And just for fun, to refer to a single measurement, employ the rarely used 'datum' as in "this datum".
2. Run-on sentences. I own this sin more than any other and that's why it's #2. I owe my friends an unspeakable debt for pointing out my habit of long, meandering sentences, where I care more about linking thoughts in a row than I do about the reader's blood pressure. My only consolation is that I see it in others too. I've seen sentences that are small paragraphs, and even a few that are large paragraphs.
1. "Plays a Role". I'm going cold turkey with this one. Similar to 'it turns out' in #5, the difference here is that this phrase is ubiquitous in scientific writing. I would argue it is a full-blown trope. You can find it in the introduction of almost every scientific paper written in the last 20 years (including mine of course). And just like a Japanese horror film where a character takes a second look down a supposedly empty hallway and suddenly sees a scary figure with long hair who wasn't there before, I sometimes look back on my writing and <JUMP SCARE> I see a "plays a role" and I don't even remember writing it!
Feel free to say "OK Boomer", but if this modest list did not play a role in how you evaluate your writing, then tell me about it...
I've been keenly interested in how elegant and clear older thermo books can be. The period around 1920-1960 (or so) saw many scientists digest the past century's thermodynamic accomplishments in to the modern presentation that we all learn today. Following up on a promise to share some of my top choices, here are my top 10, skewed rather heavily to what I own. Virtually every one was generously shared by a colleague or family member.
Honorable mention: I just received from a colleague a copy of Frederick Wall's 'Chemical Thermodynamics' (~ 50's and 60's); I really enjoy the hand-drawn illustrations (of which sadly there are too few).
10. Hugh Taylor's 1924 'Treatise on Physical Chemistry' Vol. 1 does core thermo in one efficient chapter; I feel this is more for folks who know some thermo already.
9. Edward Obert's 1948 'Thermodynamics' illustrates how older books can do some distinctive things; Obert delves in to reversibility, for example, in a way you don't always see.
8. I have unfortunately misplaced my copy of H.B. Callen's Thermodynamics (1960); one notable is that it is an early appearance of the thermodynamic square in a pchem text.
7. There are so many pchem texts -where to start? I have no idea if Hutchinson's (1962) Physical Chemistry was ever widely adopted , nor do I remember how I stumbled in to my copy. But his 'matter-of-fact' introduction to thermodynamics is a satisfyingly fast journey through classical thermo with some interesting ordering. It shines with a nice start on definitions and postulates.
6. Moore's Physical Chemistry (~1960-1970) may not be as well known in the US (?) but I think was more known abroad, and indeed I got my copy studying pchem abroad. His 'start of chapter' quotes are fun. I admit my own nostalgia in selecting it, but this well-evolved text (5th ed. still worth the $) is thorough, well ordered and clearly written, and I go back to it all the time.
5. A Dover treasure, H.C. Van Ness' 'Understanding Thermodynamics' (1969) is a wonderful set of short essays on core topics in thermo. Only downside is the old sign convention (q-w), but this is definitely brain candy.
4. Enrico Fermi's Thermodynamics (1936), also a beloved Dover edition, is known by many. Fermi focused on making the logic of classical thermodynamics more accessible to a wider (but still scientific) audience, and he pulls it off.
3. Francis Sears was involved in several texts/revisions, but I’m lucky to have a copy of his 1952 ‘Thermodynamics, The Kinetic Theory of Gases, and Statistical Mechanics’ which I received from a wonderful Swarthmore alum a while back. You'll need to mind the q-w convention, but I believe this is among the better writing in thermo in this period.
2. Planck's 'Treatise on Thermodynamics' (~1926) is no surprise on this list and, you guessed it, also a Dover book. Planck uses the ∆U=q+w notation (yeah!) and as you start to get in to the book, it will feel modern and you'll think it was written much later. The typesetting will feel only a little dated. Funny enough, it's like reading Shakespeare -it takes a few pages to get used to the look and the language and then you will be immersed and will forget about the style. Among other things, he has a nice treatment of van der Waals and real gases that I suspect is emulated today.
1. My top choice was also generously handed down by a colleague. It is Roscoe Dickinson's rare 1956 self-published "An Outline of Thermodynamics". At first glance you might be tempted to underestimate it: Dickinson's soft-bound tome relies solely on a type-writer layout, frequent use of handwritten symbols and dated use of symbols/notation that will challenge the reader. So how could this be #1? Well, partly for its rarity, I admit. But as they say in real estate, these quirks are frankly charming, and I suspect they forced Dickinson to use the pages well. Creativity flourishes with constraints. This is an engaging, clear discussion of thermo, with no loss of rigor. It includes a few interjections of oral lore some with welcome frankness (e.g. "these equations are of little use"...). So that makes it my #1.
Obligatory click-bait: I know my list is woefully inadequate - did I leave off a fave, ignore a seminal tome? If so don't hesitate to tell me about it. ;-) In a little bit I'll do my favorite modern thermo texts....