Tuesday 8 April 2008

Titrations!

...seem to be all we are doing in Chemistry at the moment, but I'm actually ok with it. I love the magical moment when you add one more drop of acid and suddenly your solution reaches a tipping point, changes colour, and you know its concentration. I'm not too keen on associating "magical moments" with chemistry, but it seems the only way to describe it; it's fascinating how we measure chemicals into our glassware, somewhat messily, trying to achieve the equivalent of the pure logic of the equations in our textbooks - and most of the time to our astonishment it works.

It's also nice working in the lab on the top floor; the class starts at 9am and though the sun hasn't yet reached between the other buildings it reaches us up there; by chance you can look out a window and catch a glimpse of the river and a ferry going by.

Now I think of it though, all this general appreciation of our Chem pracs is probably something to do with my doing three titrations in a row which agreed to near-perfection - precisely, 19.8, 19.7 and 19.7 mL. I never expect the numbers to come out quite right in experiments, but it's infinitely satisfying when they do.