CHEM 1801
Why things happen, or not
Fall 2016
revised 8/23/2016

Instructor 1: Professor Loren Williams
Office: Room 1309 IBB
email: loren.williams@chemistry.gatech.edu (best mode of communication)
Instructor 2: Professor Joseph Sadighi
Office: Room G022 MoSE
email: joseph.sadighi@chemistry.gatech.edu (best mode of communication)

Time and Place: 3:05 pm - 3:55 pm Tuesday, ES&T L1175

Office hours: 3:05 pm - 3:55 pm Thursdays, or by appointment


Email:

When sending an e-mail message, please put the following information in the subject line:
CHEM 1801, firstname lastname, subject

Example: CHEM 1801, Marie Curie, request for radiation badge.

E-mail can only be accepted from Georgia Tech accounts.

Course Structure: Our goal is to introduce students to big concepts that might get lost in the thousands of details they have to learn in introductory chemistry and biology. This course will be informal. Students will be evaluated by class participation and the occasional quiz.


- Schedule -
Week Date Instructor Topic
1 8/23 Drs. Williams & Sadighi Course Introduction
2 8/30 Dr. Williams The Laws. Energy, Periodicity and Evolution
3 9/6 Dr. Williams More Laws. Entropy, the Universe and Time
4 9/13 Dr. Sadighi Industrial Energy [why does the world run on fossil fuels?]
5 9/20 Dr. Sadighi Splitting Water
6 9/27 Dr. Williams BIFs and the GOE: the Reductive Potential of the Earth
7 10/4 Dr. Sadighi The Chemistry of Batteries
8 10/11 no class
9 10/18 Dr. Williams ATP: The Universal Energy Currency of Biology
10 10/25 Dr. Sadighi H2: An Artificial Energy Currency
11 11/1 Dr. Williams Fat & Carbohydrate
12 11/8 Dr. Williams O2 and CO2: Why we breath
13 11/15 Dr. Sadighi Solar Energy
14 11/22 Dr. Sadighi Nitrogen Fixation in Nature and in Factories
15 11/29 Dr. Williams Muscles: the Chemistry of Contraction
16 12/6 Drs. Williams & Sadighi Wrap up