http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/15568/
It comes with virtual chemicals like water, ethanol, ammonia, butane, helium, kerosene, acetone, calcium sulfate, acids, etc.

Then the user can mix two or more chemicals into a bottle and observe the following chemical reaction.

This would be a quick, easy, safe, cheap, and fun way to experiment with chemistry.

[48 votes] Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #15568


]]> en-us Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:23:59 +0000 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:00:20 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/15568/ Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:53:11 +0000
Also, many chemicals can be difficult to obtain due to laws, regulations, safety, etc. Can be difficult to buy for a private person.

Also, chemicals can be expensive too.

In school, there is often very little experimenting, and school often have very limited funds and time. Also, it doesn't allow creativity.]]> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:12:20 +0000
Are you suggesting that there are a set bunch of chemical reactions hard-coded into the program, or that the program cleverly synthesizes what chemical reactions are likely to be like based on the properties of the elements you're mixing?

In my mind I can actually envisage something of what you're talking about - and it's actually a very simple concept to code. With someone graphically minded, I can imagine producing something in Python along those kinds of lines reasonably quickly... using Pygame probably. I can actually see what sorts of classes would need to be written already.

It's a very good idea Eldmannen. Your answer to my questions?]]> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:46:38 +0000
+1]]> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:40:58 +0000 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:21:26 +0000
;)]]> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:49:26 +0000 Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:13:46 +0000 I came up with the idea, but I haven't though so much on how to actually make an implementation.
It would be really cool if the program could cleverly synthesize what chemical reactions are likely to be like based on the properties of the elements you're mixing, but I don't know if that is feasible. Perhaps just hard-coded chemical reactions will have to do.

Go ahead, make an implementation if you feel you are good enough for the task. ;)


Magnes,
Now that would be pretty cool. ;)]]> Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:13:54 +0000 If you pull that off you can probably start planning how to spend your Nobel price money. :D

]]> Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:44:47 +0000
The period table allows a level of abstraction, so that the reactions between elements can be predicted (and hence synthesised) based on simple things like the number of protons/electrons and using concepts like electron shells.

For very simple reactions between elements, this sort of thing is possible. For more complex reactions the equations and factors become exponentially harder to abstract... partly because my knowledge of chemistry only goes to A-Level, and it would therefore take a lot of research to even begin to figure out what was possible.

Though, I can picture in my mind a very simple program that would lie at the heart of this.

If the program essentially relied on a database of reactions, then, all the program does, essentially, is call upon the database, and using that, then display a preset animation (or on-the-fly render) of a chemical reaction for the required result.

The actual code for this would be pretty simple. The big, massive hurdle, is building up the reaction database.]]> Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:58:05 +0000
Check out rasmol/pymol. I think they did something simlar to this, but only a text input exists for linux.]]> Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:00:20 +0000