February 2000

Server Problems

Traffic to Antoine now greatly exceeds our ancient DEC 3000/600's capabilities. We've purchased a new webserver which should be online in late March. The new machine will provide an order of magnitude increase in bandwidth and speed, and make several new services feasible.

The Common Compound Library

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/compounds/library.shtml

The Common Compound Library contains properties, structures, and information about over 800 compounds, elements, and substances encountered in introductory chemistry courses and in everyday life. While many excellent compound and structure libraries already exist on the Web, the Common Compound Library is designed specifically for student use.

Initially, the Library will provide easy access to chemical synonyms, molecular weights, structures, equilibrium constants, thermodynamic properties, and common uses, with properties presented in a variety of common units. Structure information includes flat structural formulas, ball and stick models, electron density/electric potential maps, and Chime "live" structures that can be rotated and queried for bond lengths, bond angles, and torsion angles.

The Library is currently being expanded and integrated with Graphpad to allow chemical property plotting for matched compound categories and series.

User Comments

Print/comment/contact facilities have been added to all FAQ pages and most note pages. The comment facility can be used to annotate a page, and also to view other reader's annotations.

Just Ask Antoine

Just Ask Antoine! has been redesigned. The old URL http://antoine.frostburg.edu/HyperNews/get/just-ask-antoine.html) is no longer in use. Please update your bookmarks to http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/just-ask-antoine.shtml

Significant Figures Quiz and related pages

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/measurement/sigfig-quiz.shtml
The significant figures quiz
is now 5 questions randomly from a set of 20. The (controversial!) questions on counting significant digits in averages and on subtractions that result in numbers with trailing zeros have been explained in more detail and moved out of the quiz and into the FAQ: http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/measurement/faq/averages-and-sigfigs.shtml
Why should the rules for significant digits not be applied to averages? http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/measurement/faq/difference-sigfig.shtml
Why is 1101 cm - 1091 cm = 10 cm, with 2 significant digits?

Some Recent Additions to the FAQ

http://antoine.fsu.umd.edu/chem/senese/101/liquids/faq/h-bonding-vs-london-forces.shtml
An introduction to van der Waals forces, the tenuous forces that make life possible. Includes Flash4 representations of dipole-dipole and London forces. http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/measurement/faq/simple-sigfig-rules.shtml
Significant digit counting made simple. http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/kinetics/faq/temperature-and-reaction-rate.shtml
Does a 10° temperature rise double reaction rates? (JavaScript calculator) http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/electrons/faq/f-orbital-shapes.shtml
The exotic and complex shapes of f-orbitals.

Recent Web Picks

Elementymology & Elements Multidict (Peter van der Krogt) http://members.xoom.com/tneleme/
Historian Peter van der Krogt presents the origins of the names of the elements, along with their dates and places of discovery. The "Elements Multidict" gives the names of elements in over 20 languages.

Eric's Treasure Trove of Chemistry (Eric W. Weisstein) http://www.treasure-troves.com/chem/chem0.html
A collection of tidbits, definitions and facts from chemical technology, chemical history, mineralogy, and general chemistry compiled by the author of the CRC Concise Handbook of Mathematics.

How to make your own iron gall ink (Cyntia Karnes,Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam) http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/ink/html/make.html
Fun, clearly illustrated recipes for preparing high quality indelible inks that were once used for printing paper money.

Whelmers- McRel's Accessible Science Series (Steve Jacobs) http://www.mcrel.org/whelmers/?
A collection of K-12 physics and chemistry demonstrations and hands-on activities keyed to NRC National Science Education Standards, including assessments. The strange name comes from the collection's intent to "whelm" but not overwhelm unmotivated students. The website includes about half of the activities on McRel's CD-ROM.

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