Chemistry Sets for Adults?

An Anonymous Coward asks "I've been pursuing a few different lines of study, to refresh myself in basic sciences before I return to school. Right now I am reading up on Chemistry, and thought it would be fun to acquire a chemistry set just to play around with and maybe learn a few things from. Do any science geeks here have any suggestions?" My childhood garage probably still has purple and black stains all over it (lucky I was wearing glasses). 300 in one electronics kits, anyone?

Comments

Why?

[Gortbusters.org]

Why do you need a chemistry set to go back to school? If you want to prep for school just get a nice book so you don't have a tough time grunting the equations (and then you'll be able to adequately enjoy the labs).

Re:Why?

[kingkade]

Well a book and hands-on experimentation don't have to be exclusive of each other. Actually performing and validating guided experiments or coming up with your own to answer problems posed or your curiosity can be fulfilling.

do you really want to do titrations?

[black_widow]

Personally, I never learned any practical info in chemistry labs... Come to think of it, high school chemistry is all you're ever going to need unless you're going to be a chem engineer.

Re:do you really want to do titrations?

[dwillen]

I didn't learn too much in the required labs, but spending a semester or a summer in a lab doing research you will learn more than any number of classes or books you read.

Modern chem sets useless

[Walt Dismal]

Modern chemistry sets are crap; they have been gutted because of fear of lawsuits. So the materials and the experiments are bland and useless unless you're 8 years old.

Learn to home brew�

[(H)elix1]

I'd be real careful about buying 'chemistry' kits these days. If the war on drugs does not send the suits to your door, I'm sure the war on terror will.

Brewing - wine and beer are a good start. A fair amount of chemistry (and biology) involved when you think about it. Taking the alcohol content above 15% or so lets you play with even more toys.

Best college experience was making moonshine from captain crunch in the dorms. A bit of enzymes to convert the starch to sugar, let bubble, then we pulled out the still. Nothing like a mass spectrometer to assure you don't go blind....

As a Chemist....

[BadlandZ]

You asked for recommendations, so here's mine. As a chemist, I recommend not getting one at all. There is nothing that fun in a chemistry set anymore (for legal reasons, almost everything fun is dangerous, so not in any set). You'll probably find more stuff in your own kitchen cabinet now days anyway if you know what your looking for.

I would recommend a molecular model kit though if you really want something to play with, or if you want to be more geeky, you can get some molecular modeling software.

For school?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry to say this, but chemistry in school (I assume we mean college-level) is a horrific mixture of math and molecular structure as far as I can tell. If _only_ we got to do cool stuff like creating nifty mixtures.

If you want to prepare yourself, go buy the book for the class and start studying your ass off right now.

-Erwos

Keep a Lab book? Yes!

[Vinson Massif]

Keeping proper care of a --bound-- lab logbook is something I'll carry with me always, regardless of my career path. I still hand-number RH pages in ink; TOC in front; notes on left page; --dated-- documentation on the right. My only backslide is the occasional use of pencil. (I no longer wrangle instruments, now sysadmin.)

Good logbook habits avoid the WTF syndrome.

Don't bother...

[Anonymous Coward]

I admit I have not read all the posts. However, I agree with BadlandZ; don't get one. In college they'll pretty much give you all the info you need to succeed in chemistry class...it's being able to memorize facts, understand the math behind pH and rates of reaction, balance equations, and if you get to organic chemistry, memorize more stuff. Along the way, you *may* learn why the stuff you memorize works.

Seriously, though, I'm a chemical engineer and even *I* don't need very complicated chemistry (and it's stuff you won't learn with a chemistry set).

As a kid I had a chemistry set, and I (like most of the folks here) ignored the instructions and instead perfected my black powder recipe (a special blend of 11 herbs and spices!) They're kind of interesting and may spur children to pursue careers in the sciences based on all the neat color changes, etc., but not very educational in the school context.

Re:Interesting experiments: Silvering a mirror

[shepd]

This reminds me of something else you can do for fun, with chemistry.

Develop your own photographs (fun, but not tedious enough). Better yet, create your own PCBs (fun, and very tedious). As with the mirrors, you end up with something worthwhile when you're done.

If you're just looking for some pointless fun, drop round pennies in Tinning solution. See how many people you can trick into thinking it's a nickel.

Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, could we stop this? Can't the site be fixed to reject all submissions with the expression "in soviet Russia"? Why?

No such place. Hasn't been for a long time
And when it was, it was the Soviet Union and included a lot more than Russia.

Let's send soviet Russia to the same hell reserved for the apostrophe abusers.

Russian saying: There is no news in the truth(Pravda) and no truth in the news(Izvestiya)