Kinetics and Equilibrium

As I listened to several different podcasts this weekend, I thought of how Kinetics and Equilibrium work together for the creation of new products and how they help our understanding of the world around us.  Science Friday covered the creation of a new adhesive bandage as a medical application inside of a patient.  This bandage would have to break down at some point (thus the equilibrium), but slowly enough to hold until no longer needed (thus the kinetics). 

I also read an article on climate change and how the ocean absorbs much of the excess carbon dioxide produced.  You wouldn’t need but a general chemistry course to understand that you can “shift” equilibrium if you push more of one reactant into a system.  Small shift or big shift, more carbon dioxide should acidify the ocean.  (carbon dioxide and water create carbonic acid)  The change may be minor, but it may also affect the organisms that live in this system. 

I Didn’t Catch Anything!

Whenever I hear people talk about global warming it makes me cringe.  Someone will mention how cold it has been in Michigan and make some comment like, “if someone thinks there is global warming, they should live here!”.  This drives me nuts because it takes a single data point and assumes that it represents the world as a whole.  I am not saying that I can wrap my mind around global climate change, but I certainly understand that we do indeed pollute as a species.  Pollution can be quantified and we know it has effects on organisms. 

When I listened to the Scientific American podcast on the human impact on oceans, it made me think of the cold weather analogy I mentioned above.  One person not catching fish or getting “skunked” doesn’t constitute global ocean changes; BUT these scientists are trying to study an enormous ecosystem.  This is a difficult task because they have to sift through all information available. 

Both of these problems, global climate and ocean change, truly are overwhelming issues.  What I don’t understand is why people struggle with whether or not pollution contributes to either.  Whether it does or doesn’t contribute, we know pollution has local impacts – couldn’t this translate to global impacts?  Do you think these are just hoaxes?

Down With Fractions!

“Fractions have had their day, being useful for by-hand calculation,” DeTurck said as part of a 60-second lecture series. “But in this digital age, they’re as obsolete as Roman numerals are.”

Do you think this is a good idea?  No more fractions?  We better hope someone knows how to use them, so they can generate programs for the masses to get answers to many daily problems that require fractions.  There are “quarters” everywhere and “halves” too…  Doctors, nurses, chemists, biologists, physicists use fractions daily to convert one unit into another.  I am not sure how we could get by without teaching fractions to students at a young age in fact.  Thoughts?