What are /r/Chempros' favorite Products & Services?

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*I am a synthetic organic post doc working in drug discovery. AMA.

>Do you mean a UNIX codebase or an actual UNIX OS? I run a headless Linux server as a hobby project, so if it's the former I'm good to go.

Anywhere you can unpack tarballs and run applications and you'll be fine. Though best performance is always going to come from something with multiple cores.

>You mention a lot of different software for getting your hands dirty (which I appreciate!), but I imagine one can't just jump in on the application side, as any "results" would be meaningless. Garbage in, garbage out. Is there a good way to get a more theoretical grounding in the subject, like textbooks, online classes, etc?

To be honest, I've found that a "learning by doing" approach is actually best. There are of course plenty of resources for learning the baseline theory, with the best textbooks in my opinion being the oxford chemistry primers for comp chem. There are regular intro review articles published for essentially free citations, such as this one.

I don't have any experience with those, but they do look a little flimsy, particularly at the switch. I've used an off brand one like the one below that can read two probes at once, and haven't had any issues even when I've been a little rough. If your students are already sharing hood space, sharing a meter wouldn't be an issue. You could put them in ziplock bags or something to keep solvents from getting on the screen.

https://www.amazon.com/Durable-Precision-Channel-Thermometer-Thermocouple/dp/B019GVKRE2/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Z64Tl&content-id=amzn1.sym.e4bd6ac6-9035-4a04-92a6-fc4ad60e09ad&pf_rd_p=e4bd6ac6-9035-4a04-92a6-fc4ad60e09ad&pf_rd_r=TV...

"Why both distilled and DI?"

Just to be safe.

"Is there a particular reason that you are thinking of baking?"

The baking idea was sort of just thrown out there. Which is 1 of the 2 potential issues I see here. The 2nd is that a brush like this (the one in the middle, with the tan.... whatever kind of bristles those are, w/ white cotton tip >>>) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W426WF2 is too hard, abrasive.

Organic Chemistry as a Second Language: here

This book helped me a lot in undergrad. I TAed and tutored organic for many years and I always recommended this book as a way of understanding rather than memorizing. They will develop some good chemical intuition with this imo.

The best practical teaching you will get is simply by running lots of samples and understanding patterns. This book has plenty of patterns but honestly most of it’s online (see Reich resource someone else listed) https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Determination-Organic-Compounds-Spectral/dp/3540938095/ref=nodl_

This is my favorite spec book because I was doing complex natural product elucidation when I was starting out in chemistry- it deals with more complicated problems than many books but basics are explained very well also but by the Amazon reviews some people hate it- Organic Structure Analysis (Topics in Organic Chemistry) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195336046/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_KDW2V5YTB5F8D73C34XX It has good problem sets but you need to email Jaspars to get solutions PDF.

I recommend running lots of samples: just make samples of anything in lab- simple organic reagents, starting materials for your projects, even solvents. Maybe have lab mates blind them for you to see if you can figure out unknowns. Use the Reich site since it’s free and check out the Crews book if you care to go deeper.

There’s an NMR book and workbook by Jeremy Sanders, published by Oxford University Press that walks you through problems of varying degrees also.

This one only does 150 mTorr, but that’s totally sufficient for like 98% of organic chem. The slight upgrade to the $115 mode is rated down to 40 mTorr if that extra 100mTorr is make-or-break for you.

I’ve worn many mask types with these glasses and they have mostly solved this fogging issue.

3M Safety Glasses, Virtua CCS, ANSI Z87, Anti-Fog, Clear Lens, Blue Frame, Corded Ear Plug Control, Removable Foam Gasket https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00AEXKR4C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_7M0XF7G9WF7B8DJSE2YC?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I had my glasses up too for awhile before I found these but I got acetone splashed (a drop) in one eye and ether in the other within two weeks and that was enough to make me realize more comes at my face than I ever noticed with proper PPE

In addition to the other comments, read A PhD is not Enough!.

I don't have a freezer in my glove box, but our lab uses metal baking pans to help store scintillation vials. Helps to keep groups of samples together and can just pull the whole pan out as you need to grab certain samples.

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I hope this helps.

Bizarre answer, but the first thing that comes to mind for me is a wine cooler pack you can buy. Still would have to do some jury-rigging, but at least it would hold up for some time!

Like this: https://www.amazon.com/Vacu-Vin-38804606-Active-cooler/dp/B000GA53CE

Edit: this one looks even better since it has no bottom and has a Velcro closure! https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Cooler-Bottle-Chill-Sleeve/dp/B07TDKD966

You could buy a glass jacketed column. I made a post where I had some but wasn’t sure what they were used for. But you’d need a recirculator with cold enough liquid.

I imagine a jacket similar to the one your PI was talking about could be made by cutting up a soft cooler but that would be similar to what you’re already doing.

Either way, cooling your solvents in a dry ice/acetone bath directly before adding them to the column should help a lot.

There are a few heavily referred to texts for physical chemistry/quantum.

• Physical Chemistry by Mcquarrie and Simon (https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Chemistry-Molecular-Donald-McQuarrie/dp/0935702997) (Aka the "Big red bible" of physical/quantum chemistry.)
• Quantum Chemistry by Levine
• Physical Chemistry by Atkins
• Quantum Chemistry by Mcquarrie

I have never seen a physical chemistry/quantum chemistry class taught at the university level without one of these books. At one point they split the Physical chemistry by Mcquarrie and simon into two different books, but they lost a few chapters on kinetics along the way. That's the book I would suggest getting first as it goes through physical chemistry, THEN the introduction to quantum. Then you can read the same author's quantum chemistry book.

It's been a while, but it's worth noting that quantum mechanics is generally taught using two different methods of notation. The first is Dirac notation (or Bra Ket notation), and I forget the other one. They SEEM completely different, but they solve the same problems using similar math. I prefer the other one, I just can't seem to remember the name right now. Operators maybe?

Basically it was the same topic approached by two equally smart scientists from different views, so they teach it differently.