Worshiping in Chemistry class

Chemistry is my most interesting class this semester. I had chemistry in high school but that was a long time ago and as I remember, it was quite easy to get the teacher off the subject. He was also my basketball coach and it seems we talked more basketball than chemistry. I'm glad to be enjoying chemistry this second time around.

This week we talked about making conversions between different types of measurements. One example was figuring out the actual cost of the gold in special $50 coins that are advertised for $19.95. The example we used turned out to be $18,350 per ounce.

A common conversion is between Fahrenheit and Celsius. Celsius is a scale that makes a lot of sense: 0º is freezing point and 100º is the boiling point for water. Fahrenheit was the first temperature scale and there are many stories of why Mr Fahrenheit set his scale the way he did. According to my professor he chose set 100º as the body temperature of a horse. He didn't think that negative temperatures were good so he wanted 0º to be on the colder end so he settled on the temperature at which salt water will freeze. (I tried to verify all this on the internet and it seems no one really knows why Mr Fahrenheit settled on his scale - but this explanation seems about as good as the others I found.)

Chemistry is about atoms and how the 100 or so elements in the universe combine together to form compounds and all the physical things that exist. It is very structured, predictable and orderly. In 1869 Mendeleev put the periodic table together based on the properties of the elements. He didn't understand why they behaved the way they did or the make-up of an atom but the table is still basically organized in the same way today. At that time not all of the elements had yet been discovered but he left holes in his table and predicted that they would be filled in time. Sure enough, those elements were discovered and we have gained a much better understanding of the makeup of atoms and how they form compounds with other elements. It's all quite amazing. My professor talks about the secret of the universe being valence electrons (the electrons of one atom that form bonds with another atom). As I learn more about how it all works, I'm again amazed at the wisdom of the Creator who put it all together and I can't help but worship.