Author Archives: alan

Clickers: register online

Please obtain a clicker from the bookstore before Tuesday (last year’s clicker is fine, but it might need a new battery?) and register your clicker with this handy online form (note: Reed login required to reach the form; if you … finish reading Clickers: register online

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Preregistration – Fall 2013

Preregistration for Chem 201-202 is strongly encouraged. You can preregister if you have completed the prerequisites (Chem 101 & 102), or if you have received the instructor’s consent. I’m the instructor: Alan Shusterman. Send me an email or drop by … finish reading Preregistration – Fall 2013

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To remember, sleep

After a long afternoon or night of studying organic chemistry do you sometimes wake up the next day with little or no recall of what reagent does what? If that happens a lot, it may be that your sleep pattern … finish reading To remember, sleep

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Get Ready for 202 with a Quick Review of 201

Aaron Nilsen and I have been discussing how to make the transition from Chem 201 to Chem 202 (new schedule, new format, same book) as smooth as possible. One idea: share a short list of ‘things to remember from Chem … finish reading Get Ready for 202 with a Quick Review of 201

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MO Models for SN1 & E1 Rxns

An essential aspect of SN1 and E1 reactions is the dissociation of the leaving group. These lecture slides from Day 16 (Oct 29-30) discussed the following phenomena and trends from an MO perspective: How can we describe polar dissociation… Continue reading

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Day 14 – Activating OH as a Leaving Group

I'm providing two documents for Day 14 of class: a reaction summary and my lecture slides. You can find additional summaries in Sorrell (see p.231-2 & 233-5 near end of chapter) and in my learning objectives. Summaries are highly… Continue reading

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All that stuff crawling around in my head: it's like musical chairs

I recently wrote about the importance of carrying information forward. And I'm sure that you understand by now that the information we cover needs to be applied and not just regurgitated. But there's so much to learn. Is it… Continue reading

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Lysozyme mechanism & video

I showed a YouTube video in class last Wednesday, but didn't have time to show it to the Thursday class. The video presents the mechanism of the chemical reaction catalyzed by lysozyme enzyme, a chemical reaction that is also… Continue reading

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Review materials for Days 5-9

You can find a variety of things here as you prepare for next week's exam: How to construct an MO orbital mixing diagram (Day 5) Activity 6 – internal rotation – Selected answers Activity 7 – cycloalkane conformers -… Continue reading

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(More) Practice problems for learning activity 7

The learning objectives for activity #7 include being able to interconvert free energy changes (ΔG or ΔPE), equilibrium constants (Keq) and the percentages of the two conformers at equilibrium. Unfortunately, I neglected to list practice problems for this topic… Continue reading

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