I am an electrical engineering grad student... I have a question for all you crazy chemists out there.?

Question

Can you predict before hand what a chemical reaction will do? I mean, suppose you put two different liquids together and mix them up at some temperature and pressure... Can you guess the outcome? How do you have an intuitive feel for a substance by simply knowing it's chemical composition? From the knowledge of H20, can you predict the properties of water? Or is most of this knowledge build up over time and most of it empirical with an explanation only occuring AFTER you know the properties of the substance?

Answer 1

It's a little of both. Initially, chemists came to understand water just by noting the enormous boiling point and heat capacity. Also, they had to do a lot of lab work to determine solubilities (high ===> almost zero) of salts, and then rationalize from the results.

In modern organic chemistry, however, quantum mechanics is so good and computing power so great that chemists confidently carry out "reactions" of compounds they have no hope of getting hold of.

Answer 2

I agree with Steve_GE's statement. I have watched the theoretical modelers get access to supercomputers and get models running and then perfect their models piece by peice. When fast computers became available for office use, they were able to do preliminary work before submitting problems to the company computers for night runs. Last thing I saw before being declared surpluss was models of about 1000 atoms doing their thing. That will usually give them enough information on bond strengths and orientation to make many predictions of physical properties without having to make the compounds. You now have some of this in electronics design software.

Answer 3

Of course :) It doesn't matter what the STEREOTYPE is for an engineer, as long as YOU personally are not nerdy. Most modern language students are girls, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't date a guy studying French. That would be really dumb.