Friday, December 22, 2006

Chemistry of Christmas

This is from the CHMINF-L list, slightly edited. Have a great break!:

THE CHEMISTRY OF CHRISTMAS
(thanks to a posting in Stephanie Bianchi's (NSF) Sci-Tech Newsletter)

For some obscure reason, chemists and other scientists seem to like to compose Christmas carols:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/3_1.html#subindex (Scroll down a bit to get to the carols)
http://www.ionaphysics.org/library/physics%20songs/Carols.htm
http://www.greece.k12.ny.us/oly/chemistry/Chemistry%20Carols.htm
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/edse456/apt/activity/
physicscarol.htm


There is even a chemistry version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" -- can you find the elements in this story?
http://employees.oneonta.edu/helsertl/
ChemXmasCarol.html


You may enjoy a Christmas Chemistry Lab:
http://www.kyantec.com/Tips/Crystallization%20of%20a%20Supersaturated%20Sucrose%20Solution.htm

Or use chemistry to solve the "Christmas Cookie Mystery":
http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classchem.html#Anchor2

At Christmas in 1827, Michael Faraday started a series of Christmas lectures on chemistry. These lectures show that the interesting relationship chemists have had with Christmas goes way back in time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Royal_Institution_Christmas_Lectures


The Royal Institution (http://www.rigb.org/rimain/heritage/faradaypage.jsp) still hosts Christmas lectures today, as do many other institutions. The very first of these lectures was on the chemistry of candles:
http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Mar2002/pdf/Mar2002Classics.pdf

RI Christmas lectures are now broadcast by the BBC.

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