• Question: do you like chemistry

    Asked by Charlotte_334 to Frank, Ian, Isabel, Jared, Zena on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Zena Hadjivasiliou

      Zena Hadjivasiliou answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      I do like chemistry yes! Although I wish I knew more about it! My favourite part is using reaction equations that describe how different molecules interact with each other over time and how they look in space. My favourite chemical reaction is the Belousov Zhabotinsky reaction — I still can’t believe the beautiful patterns we see, you can check it out here:

      And these patterns can be predicted using some very neat equations!

    • Photo: Isabel Pires

      Isabel Pires answered on 14 Mar 2015:

      As a Biologist, I do like Chemistry a lot, because much of biology is based on chemical reactions between molecules or groups of molecules. We also need to understand Chemistry to understand how to target certain aspects of cancer cells, in order to kill them. For that we normally work with Chemists to make the chemicals to target the cells. I wish I had more time to learn more about how they do this…

    • Photo: Frank Longford

      Frank Longford answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      As a Chemist, I’m pretty keen Chemistry too :p. Chemistry can be seen as the link between Physics and Biology, since it involves how physical laws equations for particles on a nano scale affect proteins, cells, organs and creatures on our life scale. I enjoy it because large systems of molecules are like big machines that we try to control (although its hard because we can’t see them and can only influence them indirectly). Also there are some exciting moments that can happen in the lab with things that go bang…

      There are three main areas of Chemistry: Organic, Inorganic and Physical. Organic chemistry includes reactions involving the most common elements in our world: hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen being the main ones. Natural products, drugs and polymers are all studied by organic chemists. Inorganic chemistry includes reactions involving the rest of the elements in the periodic table. Catalysts, paints and dyes are considered to be “Inorganic”. Physical chemistry is the study of the maths and physical laws behind chemistry, as well as building and interpretating analysis machines. I enjoyed all areas of chemistry throughout my degree but ended up specialising in Physical chemistry (perhaps because I’m a Physicist at heart).

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