pitubo said:
Molecular gastronomy. Scroll down to see the rotovap.
When I bought my rotovap second hand, I asked the seller if he had been using it for "cooking". His look back seemed both perplexed and disturbed. Apparently, he took the term "cooking" in the Walter White "drug cook" sense. He had never heard of the gastronomical use.
I live in a state where medical and recreational cannabis are legal, and provided one is willing to jump through some hoops, advanced cannabis extraction is legal. A rotary evaporator is a must have for any serious cannabis extractor and processer, I have even heard of those with Roto-vaps renting them out to licensed cannabis extractors who have yet to purchase their own.
Just another legitimate use for this handy piece of laboratory equipment.
The rotovap has always mesmerized me, the large round domed glass vessel spinning over a metal steam bath with some fluid contained in it, the fluid rotating in the glass as its undergoing evaporation, the "sci-fi" look of the coil, the buttons, tubes, glass, nobs, and noises, and then there's the knowledge that there is a liquid which is becoming a vapor, traveling towards another glass vessel, then returning to its liquid state in another location, leaving behind residues, crystals, oils, or altered liquid solutions consisting of components which require higher temperatures to achieve this...all of this has always instilled a sense of childlike amazement and awe in me, the entire process is fascinating, and has just as many psychological implications as it does applications in real world chemistry
You all know what mercury looks like-at room temperature it's a silvery liquid that flows, it's like a mirror. For the alchemists, and this is just a very short exercise in alchemical thinking, for the alchemists mercury was mind itself, in a sense, and by tracing through the steps by which they reached that conclusion you can have a taste of what alchemical thinking was about. Mercury takes the form of its container. If I pour mercury into a cup, it takes the shape of the cup, if I pour it into a test tube, it takes the shape of the test tube. This taking the shape of its container is a quality of mind and yet here it is present in a flowing, silvery metal. The other thing is, mercury is a reflecting surface. You never see mercury, what you see is the world which surrounds it, which is perfectly reflected in its surface like a moving mirror, you see. And then if you've ever, as a child, I mean I have no idea how toxic this process is, but I spent a lot of time as a child hounding my grandfather for his hearing aid batteries which I would then smash with a hammer and get the mercury out and collect it in little bottles and carry it around with me. Well, the wonderful thing about mercury is when you pour it out on a surface and it beads up, then each bead of mercury becomes a little microcosm of the world. And yet the mercury flows back together into a unity. Well, as a child I had not yet imbibed the assumptions and the ontology of science. I was functioning as an alchemist. For me, mercury was this fascinating magical substance onto which I could project the contents of my mind. And a child playing with mercury is an alchemist hard at work, no doubt about it. -Terence McKenna
These processes were just as much psychological as they were physical/chemical in the mind of the alchemists, and in a near identical way i engage in this type of alchemical psychology while I'm observing something as seemingly mundane as a rotovap in action.
I think this is a big part of what draws me to chemistry, well, that and the ability to be able to understand the chemical composition if the physical world, and how to be able to use that knowledge to better your daily life, and to be able to produce molecules, molecules which you intimately know every atom and bond of, and manipulated on an atomic level to produce through these fascinating chemical procedures...I'm also addicted to "notebook" chemistry, and spend a good deal of time in this area...
So many have this interest and fascination with chemistry, yet in modern times so little opportunity exists. There are also many chemophobic individuals out there, most feel that all chemicals are the antithesis of "green" and have poor understanding of what chemistry actually is...it's sad to see so little opportunity for aspiring young chemists, As demonstrated by this excerpt from the begining section of "the llustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture" by Robert Bruce Thompson
What I experienced that Christmas morning was repeated in millions of other homes through the years as boys (and, alas, only a few girls) opened their first chemistry sets. From the 1930s through the 1960s, chemistry sets were among the most popular Christmas gifts, selling in the millions. It’s said that in the 1940s and 1950s there was a chemistry set in nearly every household where there was a child. Even as late as the 1970s, chemistry sets remained popular and were on display in every toy store and department store. And then something bad happened. By the 1980s, chemistry sets had become a dying breed. Few stores carried them, and most of those sets that remained available were pale shadows of what chemistry sets had been back in the glory days.
The decline of chemistry sets had nothing to do with lack of interest. Kids were and are as interested as ever. It was society that had changed. Manufacturers and retailers became concerned about liability and lawsuits, and “chemical” became a dirty word. Most chemistry sets were “defanged” to the point of uselessness, becoming little more than toys. Some so-called “chemistry sets” nowadays are actually promoted as using “no heat, no glass, and no chemicals,” as if that were something to be proud of. They might just as well promote them as “no chemistry.”
Even the best chemistry set that is still sold, the $200 Thames & Kosmos Chem C3000, is an unfortunate compromise among cost, liability, and marketability. The Chem C3000 kit lacks such essential equipment as a balance and a thermometer, provides little glassware, and includes only the tiny amounts of chemicals needed to do unsatisfying micro-scale chemistry experiments. Despite these criticisms, the C3000 kit is a good choice for giving late elementary school or early middle school students their first exposure to hands-on chemistry lab work. It allows kids to produce bright colors and stinky smells, which after all are the usual hooks that draw kids into chemistry. The problem is, that’s not enough.
Laboratory work is the essence of chemistry, and measurement is the essence of laboratory work. A hands-on introduction to real chemistry requires real equipment and real chemicals, and real, quantitative experiments. No existing chemistry set provides anything more than a bare start on those essentials, so the obvious answer is to build your own chemistry set and use it to do real chemistry. -The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments; Robert Bruce Thompson
It's sad to see how much interest still remains, but how little opportunity exists...
Ok, I feel like I'm going off topic.
Any way, how did CH2CL2 get brought up?
-eg
