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Article: Wow! It exploded! And other fun with chemistry.(THE HOME FORUM)(Viewpoint essay)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- January 9, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Robert Klose
In my college biology course, I teach a short section on chemistry that's essential to understanding many biological processes. Unfortunately, many of my students grimace when I so much as mention chemistry, due, I suspect, to unhappy experiences with the subject in high school. Undaunted, I plow ahead.
There is a certain romance about chemistry that I strive to communicate to my students, and much of its poetry lies in its building blocks - the elements.
Oxygen, sulfur, gold, tin: For the longest time only 104 of these pure substances were known, 92 of them naturally occurring and 12 man-made. But now the number seems to ...