#the 'hard' part of Chemistry- the science behind understading and perfecting chemical practice - IS important | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

adrianastrix · 4 months ago

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*cries in Chemistry teacher*

something you don't learn until you get really far into the making and tinkering life is that there's no such thing as "glue" really. there are so many kinds of substances that stick other substances together and they are all very different and if you just go look at the adhesives aisle in the hardware store the packaging never actually tells you anything useful. it's like "this is SUPER T-REX POWER GLUE" and the fine print says "good for use on wood metal and plastic". okay. but WHICH PLASTICS MY GOOD BITCH,

because SURPRISE, there's no such thing as "plastic" either. every kind of wood is basically the same on a chemical level, but the only thing every plastic has in common is "some of its molecules are long" and that is NOT a quality that determines how things stick together.

I just ordered some stuff I hope will permanently stick a circuit board to a steel sheet and withstand temperatures up to 150 degrees. by the way circuit boards are made of epoxy-bound woven glass cloth which is cool as hell but what the fuck do you glue that with? can any of the 12 kinds of adhesives I currently own do that? no of course not. if I want to stick two pieces of acrylic together so hard they become watertight to a depth of 3000 metres I have some shit that does that, but it does literally nothing else.

anyway. once you start learning how many kinds of sticking things together there are, the people at 3M start to seem like witches and I don't know if they're the kind we can trust with that level of arcane knowledge

#the chem curriculum we have has its reasons to be like that #some even ARE good reasons #but the trick is that there are other ways to achieve what it wants to achieve #ways that can make it more interesting and prepare people more for future housework and tinkering #think of it like that: actual chemistry is basically cooking but with things that sometimes might kill you #very few people will say cooking is a useless skill or something that just a select few who were born with the right brain can do #the 'hard' part of Chemistry- the science behind understading and perfecting chemical practice - IS important #but it shouldn't KEEP people from learning and understanding the practice #as of you needed to have as much knowledge as a michellin star chef before being allowed to make a cake #not even a fancy cake just one that isn't pre-made and has a little glazing on top #if you could never see how easy and useful cooking can be WHY would you care about what michellin chefs have to teach???#if chemistry in school don't dialogue with chemistry at home what is even the point #chemistry #chemistry education

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