You got questions?
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:And I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to Chemistry For Your Life.
Jam:A podcast where we help you understand the chemistry of everyday life.
Melissa:Today, we're gonna do a special episode that's kind of different, And we're gonna do a q and a. So we've got a lot of questions from the listeners, and we want to take some time to answer those questions.
Jam:Yes. And a lot of these, mostly I mean, some of them are general, but mostly regard, like, episodes 1 and 2. And so we wanted to go ahead and Do this kind of soon so that those questions aren't sat sitting, like, unanswered for a long time, because we've already got other episodes coming down the way. So, we might if this goes well, might do more of these in the future, I think.
Melissa:Yeah. So use guys use guys. You guys should submit your questions if you have them so that we can answer them and possibly include them on a future episode. But before we do that, let's catch up, Jam. I haven't seen you.
Jam:Yeah. It's I mean, I think people are probably kind of confused when we say that because of How we our recording, like, schedule has been. But, yeah, it's been some time. We've both been out of town. I Had a pretty cool thing happen in my life.
Jam:Yeah. My younger brother and his wife had their baby. They, and she is Beautiful. She's incredibly sweet. Really, really cute little kid.
Jam:Her name is Harmony Joy Robinson, and she is, the first Kid of our family, the 1st grandkid or whatever, of our side of the family. So I've got nieces and nephews on my wife's side and love them to death. Is a little bit of a new deal having Mhmm. Someone in my own, you know, blood relative Yeah. Have a kid, especially because it's my younger brother.
Jam:So It's pretty interesting, but we Em and I went to go visit them just really briefly, just to see them. We had a, like, a 3 day window. We were like, if we can do this now, it'd be great. We can see this little one before too long, and we're not sure how soon we could get back up there. Yeah.
Jam:Be better to spend a little bit of time than no time at all. Yeah. And so we had to go up there and and help them a little bit and just get to Spend time they're they definitely are in that new parent stage, which I just have heard about but never experienced myself, obviously. And, You know how some babies aren't really cute from day 1? Yeah.
Jam:Like, it's not their fault. Nobody's fault.
Melissa:I mean, they're cute in that they're our baby, but you're not like, Oh.
Jam:Yeah. Sometimes they have a little bit of that, like, okay. Let's get some meat on those bones a little bit. Look at a little bit alien.
Melissa:It's fattening you up a little.
Jam:But but that is not at all how Harmony
Melissa:She was, like Oh, yeah.
Jam:Cute from day 1. Really, like she got chubby cheeks, just cute Looks. She does a lot of stuff with her hands already, which, like, maybe that's not weird. But she was like
Melissa:But you think it's amazing?
Jam:Yeah. And, like, I was holding her at one point, and she was, like, putting her I don't know what she was trying to do. Maybe she isn't either. She was putting her hands, like, by her face a lot. It just, like, looked so, Like
Melissa:So cute.
Jam:Yeah. So cute. Then, like, she knew she was doing like, she was reacting the things that was going on. Like like, putting her fist up to her and it seems like what you'd do if you were thinking. And it's like, this little baby's thinking.
Melissa:So I'm over here smiling like an idiot. I've seen pictures of Harmony. She is So cute. Mhmm. Can you put pictures of her on Instagram on the
Jam:I will ask. I bet it'll be fine. I'll ask. But, yeah. Congrats to Judah and Mindy, and I'll ask so that you guys can all enjoy the cuteness of harmony.
Jam:So by the time you're listening to this, it might have already been approved, and you'll see photos of her, hopefully.
Melissa:Yeah. Hopefully so. Yes. She is Really cute. And, just so everyone knows, Jam is over here smiling like an idiot.
Melissa:He's totally in love with this tiny baby.
Jam:I totally am.
Melissa:Well, I was out of town too. I wanna talk about my thing.
Jam:Yeah. Is your thing as cute as mine?
Melissa:No. I was about to
Jam:say it's not as cute. Okay.
Melissa:It's not nearly as cute.
Jam:That's okay. No one's comparing.
Melissa:I think everyone's comparing. So my I also went to see my sibling.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:I, went to see my sister, she lives in Mississippi. We talked about her before.
Jam:Climate scientist?
Melissa:Yes. She does sea level rise. And I had a week where I wasn't teaching, so I went to just basically get work done with her. And then my brother-in-law, who I didn't talk about last time, but he he, Is he wasn't there at the beginning of the week because he's a boat captain
Jam:Woah.
Melissa:Which I think is really cool.
Jam:Captain is still a job, A title you can have. That's, like, that's cool.
Melissa:I think, technically, on the boat he's on now, he's a first mate, but he has a captain's license. And he works on a research vessel. So I don't know if none boat people know this. I wouldn't have known this without him, but there's boats for, like, merchant merchant ship, research vessel, You know, just different boats that have dis different distinctions.
Jam:Uh-huh.
Melissa:He works on a research vessel. So labs that need to Do some kind of research on the ocean or in the gulf, specifically, can hire a research vessel to go out. And so he works on the point Sir
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:He actually got me this cute T shirt of the bow, and it has it on the a picture of the bow on the back. And I'm like, this is where my brother-in-law works. It's so cool. And while we were there, we worked on his Instagram game.
Jam:Oh, nice.
Melissa:He because he was, like, look at all these cool pictures I took, and he showed me this dolphin, Finn, like, these dolphins just, like, playing by the bell.
Jam:Probably awesome opportunities for really good Instagram stuff.
Melissa:Yeah. And they they had some NASA, Like, scientists on the boat, and they did a weather balloon that went off from the boat, and he just recorded that happening.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:It's so cool. And there's sea turtles. I mean, he has much cool stuff happened to him.
Jam:He's gotta share that with the world.
Melissa:Yes. He was just hoarding it Yeah. On his iPhone.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:That's I was like, okay. Well, it is a crime. Yeah. I forced him to up his Instagram game and post some of those really cool pictures so that everybody could see them.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So if you wanna follow him on Instagram, you can go to JD on a boat.
Jam:JD on a boat? That's a good title.
Melissa:His name is JD. So he and he's on a boat.
Jam:He should've put captain in it, but I like that it's just on a boat.
Melissa:Well, I think it's his title. He was like yeah. I just started before he was a captain. So JD on a boat. You can go and see his beautiful he took a picture of the moon where you can see the craters in it so well.
Melissa:It's crazy. He's
Jam:Man, oh, yeah. There'd be a lot less light pollution Out there. Mhmm. That's pretty cool.
Melissa:A beautiful sunrises, beautiful sunsets. If you under if you would not believe how beautiful the Gulf of Mexico can be.
Jam:It's like we only see the, like, kinda grungy, tacky part on the beach where, like, weird stuff washes up, and there's, like Yeah. Questionable stuff in the water. Mhmm. Like sewage or whatever. Yeah.
Jam:So
Melissa:Sewage? I don't know about, but but it is beautiful. So that was fun to get to hang out with him and Just have the weekends and evenings to do fun stuff with my family while still getting a lot of work done.
Jam:Yeah. That's awesome. Should we start digging in to these pretty intense questions? I think so. Okay.
Jam:Okay. The first question we have from episode 1, this question's from Vianette. There is a soap plant that they use in Peru to clean things. It makes suds and everything. Does that have soap molecules in it?
Melissa:Okay. So when we got this question from Vienna, I got really excited. Uh-huh. And I whipped out my phone and Looked up what the salt plant was. Now I don't remember what it was called because it was maybe about a week ago.
Melissa:Mhmm. And Then once I found the name, I was able to look at the molecular structure of the thing that was in it that caused the SUDs. Uh-huh. And it wasn't exactly the same as a type of soap molecules that we would see Yeah. In our everyday chemistry textbooks.
Melissa:But it did have the same qualities of long nonpolar groups are big. They were rings, but big areas of nonpolarity with random areas of polarity on it. We did have that same capability of bringing together the polar and the non polar and making
Jam:Nice. So it looked a little different, but and it wasn't, like, the exact same elements Mhmm. That you said are most common in soap? The the idea of it being, like, something just on the Earth or in the Earth that can just already kinda be soap
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Is not that crazy.
Melissa:Not that crazy. It's actually real. So good job, Ynette. Way to go to Peru and learn things.
Jam:Yeah. That's awesome. And this next one's from Steven. My biggest question from the episode, how are the polar and nonpolar parts of soap molecules connected if polar and nonpolar don't interact?
Melissa:Okay. That's a good question. And I sort of touched on this, I think, in the episode, but you're sort of thinking about 2 different things. So one is a bond, and bonds can be polar or nonpolar all on the same molecule. It doesn't matter.
Melissa:So you can have an area that's very polar on this molecule. And then so its carbons just bonded to hydrogens, which basically have the same electronegativity and are neutral. And then the middle of that, the carbon can also be bonded to oxygen, and that would be a more polar bond. And that's okay to all have on 1 molecule. The things that don't interact are separate molecules.
Melissa:If you have a polar molecule and a nonpolar molecule, those 2 don't wanna interact. Okay. So it's more about 1 is called intermolecular forces, like, between molecules, polar and nonpolar don't wanna interact. Within the same Molecule. It doesn't matter if the individual bonds are polar or nonpolar.
Melissa:You can have both present in 1 molecule, and that's not a big deal.
Jam:Okay. So it's not like the idea of polar nonpolar, like, seeming to be enemies or whatever is not really a thing. Once once it comes to the point where, like, they're part of the same molecule, They're not like, I hate you or whatever. If they're
Melissa:in the same molecule, it's fine. They just only wanna interact with other things that are like them.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So once it's all in 1 molecule, it doesn't matter. But once the think of the molecule as a body. If a body is one way, It would only wanna be with other things like it, but on the body, there can be several different things.
Jam:Got it. Okay.
Melissa:Okay. So
Jam:Okay. The next questions are about episode 2.
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:The first one is from Pedro, and he says, maybe I didn't listen, but is there such a thing as specific cold? Same as specific heat, but instead it applies to colder temperatures.
Melissa:So the quick answer is no. Mhmm. Cold in science is really just the absence of heat.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:So, really, no. There's not specific cold, but Specific heat applies to gaining and losing temperatures.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So gaining and losing heat will raise or lower your temperature. Right. So the short answer is no. But the quick the real answer is no. But Yeah.
Melissa:Specific heat applies to everything.
Jam:Right. So, like, Like, the 2nd part of his question kind of about applying to cold temperatures, it's still it's specifically, it still measures that. Right?
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:So it's like it's just the difference of To in vocab, we use the words cold and heat as opposites, and it's like, you'd wanna have both or whatever.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:But in science, heat is like You you're measuring it. If there's not any of it, it's cold, but you'd still use the word heat.
Melissa:Right. It's
Jam:like there is or isn't
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Certain amounts of heat.
Melissa:Okay. You got it.
Jam:It's a good question. Okay. This is These
Melissa:are all really good questions. I was excited when I got every single
Jam:So this next 1, 2 people 2 different people asked this question. Ryan and Grant, why do different things have different specific heats? Uh-oh.
Melissa:So we glossed over this in the episode Yeah. Kind of purposefully because it's a little complicated, but I think I found a way to explain it that is Quick and understandable.
Jam:Okay. Awesome.
Melissa:So different molecules have different ways they can move, like in and or up and down. It's like rotational, translational. They can circle around. They have lots of different options for motion. Mhmm.
Melissa:The more options for motion they have, think of each option of motion as a little shelf where they can store energy.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So the more options of motion they have, the more shells so they can store energy is going to be. So you can take in more energy in the form of heat before your temperature is increasing
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:Because you have more places to store that heat.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:That's the best way I can think to describe it. So water, for example, has a lot of room to move.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Ice, the same molecule, But in a different structure
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Has way less room to move because the molecules are rigidly put together.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And so ice actually has a Ice actually has a lower specific heat
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:Than water does even though they're the same molecule because it's in a different State.
Jam:Totally. And that makes sense to us visually because we know that ice like, we don't think about it as having a little specific heat, but we know that Whenever it's experiencing heat, it can't just take that in and handle it. It melts. It's gonna, like
Melissa:Right.
Jam:Have to change
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:Its form, its state.
Melissa:Right. So, consistently, solids have a lower specific heat than the liquids of the same substance.
Jam:Okay. Got it. So shelves, they store the heat. Or if they don't have room to store it, then it changes their temperature.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:Got it.
Melissa:That's a nice little bit of physical chemistry for you. That's a little deeper dive beyond Gen Chem. We got some physical chemistry in
Jam:there. Okay. This next question is from Steven from the same Steven. Right? From the previous okay.
Melissa:He's had very good questions. Steven has had very good questions.
Jam:So, he said, I have a another question related to episode 2. I've been meaning to ask, is there any correlation between specific heat In melting and boiling points, e g, does higher specific heat usually mean higher melting boiling point?
Melissa:That is a really good question. So I alluded to this in the episode, but when I was researching this episode, I went down a Physical chemistry rabbit hole. Uh-huh. So and I started down this rabbit hole with my organic chemistry friends, which probably wasn't the best choice, but There were no available physical chemists around me at the time. So I went into an organic chemistry lab down the hall, and I said, hang on.
Melissa:So different things have different specific heats. Is that as a result of the same forces that cause melting point, boiling point? Those forces are known as intermolecular forces. They're basically the forces that hold different molecules together or keep them further apart. They're responsible for a lot of things.
Melissa:Mhmm. And we were just chatting about it, and everybody seemed to think, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Probably so.
Melissa:And then I went back to my office to keep working on the episode, and Then I thought, wait a second. That doesn't make sense because sand is not melted And water is. Yeah. Yeah. So it can't be as a result of those same forces.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And then I Went back and asked that question to them, and they all said, oh, yeah. Yeah. So, that is a really good intuition. Yeah. Steven, and a good thought process.
Melissa:But, actually, the answer is maybe that has a little bit to do with it, but mostly it's what we talked about before with the things of motion rather than the intermolecular forces that hold them closer together or further apart. That is a little bit involved because the rigidity comes into play with the way the molecules are interacting with each other, but it's more about how much motion they have and less about breaking those forces between one another.
Jam:Yeah. And then the the case of, like, sand and water, it's almost like the opposite is true. It's like inverse. Because it's like, Yeah. Water has a lower melting point, obviously, because it's already water.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:But it has a you know, it has to get a pretty hot dip oil.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And the sand is, like, like we talked about experiencing the same the same heat source being put on it.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:And it's staying at same state. So it's like it's almost the opposite is true. Where it's like Mhmm. Like, the sand is having a much stronger reaction in terms of what we feel when we touch it, even though it's staying solid and not melting.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:It's not it's yeah. It's weird.
Melissa:So they feel like they would be
Jam:as a result of the same thing because they both have to
Melissa:do with putting heat into a substance. Mhmm. But it is actually very different things that dictate it.
Jam:And I'm I'm definitely thinking less the case because I don't wanna be walking on, like, You know, liquid lava lava glass stuff when we go to the beach. So
Melissa:Yeah. That's probably better for you.
Jam:Yeah. The beach would be, like, a very, very different place If that was not the case. Okay. What is the typical life cycle of an episode?
Melissa:So I know the first half of this question, but you're gonna have to answer the second half. Okay. The typical lifestyle starts with me Having an idea. So next week's episode, I got the idea when I was sitting watching my brother-in-law Cook a meal. And I saw him do something, and I was like, oh, I know why people do that.
Melissa:But do people know why they do that? Yeah. Or we have a long list of Topics that we wanna cover that I've just been thinking of in compiling. So I just pick a topic and basically put together an outline. And I usually know so far, I haven't had to learn Uh-huh.
Melissa:A ton, but I will fact check. Like, I'm pretty sure it's this, but I just don't wanna teach anyone the wrong thing. So I'll go quick, grab my chemistry book or whatever, and just, like, do a quick review and make sure that what I'm teaching is accurate.
Jam:So sort of like pre fact checking. Mhmm.
Melissa:Yeah. To make sure that I sort of know that this is based In science and not
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Sometimes people just teach you things in classes, and then you can't find proof of that anywhere. Yeah. Or you just wonder, is that real? Because they're
Jam:just Passed down from, like, audibly from person to person? Right.
Melissa:So so I'll go fact check, and then I Put the I have that outline that I've put together, and I just know what I'm gonna say. And I come in, and Jim has no idea usually what I'm gonna say.
Jam:Yep.
Melissa:I might give him a little bit of a teaser or tell him the name of the topic, but everything he learns, everything you hear of him saying, Oh, we're asking questions. That's genuine. That happens in real time. And so we'll come, and we'll have our conversation. And I'll teach him whatever I'm teaching him and Also teach you guys.
Melissa:And then
Jam:One question even I got, about people not realizing that I'm learning it for the 1st time also. We try to make that live so that it is genuine, and, also, it's like a really good test for if this is how learnable something is. Like, if I totally Failed at learning it, it'd mean either, like, I'm a bad learner, or we need to explain it differently or something. So Yeah. I'm, like, totally unprepared.
Jam:Don't have, like, The there's no cheating that happens or anything like that. I I think it is best for both of us for Melissa to know that I already don't know it, so she has to teach it from square one. And for me not to have any prior knowledge other than just from something from my life or something I might remember from a chemistry class forever ago. Yeah. And it makes it a much better, environment for for teaching for listeners as well.
Melissa:Yeah. That and that helps me to know what I'm supposed to Or how I can explain it in a way that's helpful. Mhmm. And sometimes there's things that I think I'm explaining really clearly, and then Jim has questions. And I'm Sort of my response is, oh, I need to think of another way to explain that.
Melissa:And that's probably true not only for jam, but also for the listeners.
Jam:So it really is helpful to make
Melissa:sure that you You listeners are getting the best experience possible. Yeah. But then after that, I don't really know what happens to episodes. Yeah. I come here and I record, and then I'm I say, bye, Jam.
Melissa:I'm going off to school now and leave him to it.
Jam:Yeah. It's probably kinda boring, so I'm not gonna go into crazy detail. We, I listen back to them and and clean up stuff like coughs or if we had to, like, restart a sentence or if there's a weird sound or, like, I something off the table or
Melissa:The dogs like to chime in. Yeah.
Jam:Or at the dog's sound or whatever. Just clean them up a little bit, and adjust levels and some EQ stuff, and then send it to then export that and send it to Melissa to listen to and make sure that She hears it back and doesn't hear anything that's factually wrong or confusing, so we kinda have a double check there. And then we have some friends that have volunteered to, be reviewers. And so they help us out, and you'll hear them as credit at the end of episodes. And so we get that Feedback from them, if there's any additional as we make those, and then we, schedule them to be sent to your ears Yeah.
Jam:On our host. So
Melissa:Yeah. And that's fine because you can see all the analytics and stuff.
Jam:And so that's that's my, I guess half of it. But
Melissa:It seems pretty evenly distributed of who does what.
Jam:Yeah. The next question that came from Steven is, is Jam your real name, and Why do you go by Jam?
Melissa:Well and that didn't just come from Steven. That came from a lot of people have asked me. Who's Jam? Is that his real name? Why does he go by Jam?
Melissa:So, Jam?
Jam:Okay. So, my name is Joshua Andrew Miguel Robinson. So Jam is my initials, or jam with an r is my initials, I guess, the whole thing.
Melissa:Jammer.
Jam:Jammer. I Don't go by jam to everyone, but the name Josh or Joshua is really common.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:And I don't like it. And so it's not like I get to choose what everybody calls me. But when I was in school doing film projects, everything like that, I needed to have something that was a unique name to attach to all of my work. And so I started doing j a m Robinson. Like
Melissa:Mhmm. Like
Jam:you'd see for a lot of things like Authors are like, D. R. R. Tolkien is the best example I can think of because he had also 2 middle names. So I started putting that on my projects.
Jam:Now we're thinking about it, but people would just read it as Jam Robinson instead of saying j a m Robinson. And so a few people called me that. And then at my Unprofessional of us, but I go by almost exclusively Mhmm. With work and stuff. So it helps too because it makes me unique in terms of searchability for, projects ID or website stuff or LinkedIn or resume stuff.
Jam:It just makes you'd be surprised at how many Joshua Robinsons there are. So That's kinda the explanation. Does that make sense?
Melissa:That does make sense. So if I was walking up to you on the street and I know you and recognize you Mhmm. You would want me to say, hey, Jam or hey, Josh or hey, Joshua?
Jam:Yeah. Josh is my least favorite of all of those.
Melissa:Okay.
Jam:But it's also the one that Probably, like, the most people call because most people who are named Joshua are, like, totally cool with being called Josh. And so it's kinda like a copy paste deal. And but I'm not gonna start I'm not gonna correct people about it. It's just not worth it.
Melissa:Okay. Just
Jam:too much effort. But yeah.
Melissa:So now everyone knows. So if anyone asks me that, I'm gonna Tune in to episode 5, and you'll get your answer. Yeah. Perfect.
Jam:It's probably not that satisfying either, though, because it's not like There's no big I don't know.
Melissa:I think it's interesting that your that your name is Joshua. Andrew Miguel is interesting.
Jam:That's true. That is pretty people wouldn't guess that. So yeah.
Melissa:Okay. So is that all the questions that we have?
Jam:That is it. That's all the questions. Thank you guys so much for sending those in.
Melissa:Mhmm. This is a nice, little bit of
Jam:a lighter episode if you
Melissa:needed a break from the in intense chemistry learning sessions.
Jam:Melissa and I have a lot of ideas for topics of chemistry of everyday life, but we we wanna hear from you. And if you have any questions or ideas, you can reach out to us at Gmail or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at chem for your life. That's Kim, f o r, your life, to share thoughts and ideas. And if you enjoy this podcast, you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And if you really like it, you can write us a review on Apple Podcasts.
Jam:That helps us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson. Jim Robinson is our producer, and we'd like to give a special thanks to Autumn
