Fusion Power

Nuclear fusion (you know, like, in the sun) has the potential to be a safe and clean source of practically unlimited energy. To generate power by fusion, the nuclei of two light hydrogen isotopes are fused together, releasing energy. To do this, the isotopes must be heated to 100 million degrees celcius and held in a small space for at least 1 second.
Research on this topic is led by Joint European Torus (JET), a conglomeration of European scientists based in Culham, UK. Their research could--this is a little dramatic, but whatever--change civilization as we know it. A safe, clean, and renewable energy source would be pretty slick.

I visited these blogs

Ryan, Eric, Mica, Chrissy

The general goal of the applications of chemistry that people researched can be summarized as making the world a better place. It's great that this is the case, because it really feels like a lot of people don't care much about that. A lot of decision-making today is based on principal, not logic. And I don't mean political or "real world" logic. I mean the kind of logic that you would use in your role as a human being.

Interesting Chemsitry Applications

Nuclear Fusion: http://www.fusion.org.uk/
Self-Cleaning Glass: http://optics.org/cws/article/research/9905
Detection of concealed explosives: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5668342-description.html
Scramjet: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/f_scramjets.html
Photovoltaics: http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-full-spectrum-solar-cell.html

The use of nanoparticles in photovoltaic cells is amazing because it dramatically increases the efficiency of the cells. The commercialization of this technology will have a significant impact on the entire world: reduced global dependence on fossil fuels will turn the current geopolitical situation upside down. Production of nanoparticles is fairly inexpensive, so use of photovoltaic cells could be possible even in developing nations--with a little help from the rest of us.

Mrs. V, this is the post telling you where my real/corrected set of comments are.

I commented on Mica's, Eric's, and Corinne's posts about Honors Chem.

This is the post about being in honors chem that I didn't realize I had to do until I had done the other one.

I think the Honors Chemistry program is great. In addition to allowing us to receive individual attention, have more in-depth discussions, and faster-paced classes, the small class (8 people) just fits the room very comfortably. For labs, each pair of lab partners has their own table. In a regular class, I wouldn't have to work as hard, but I wouldn't learn as much or be as interested as I am in chemistry.

Is researching things that are "cool" really necessary?

I believe that researching things that seem to have no purpose is definitely worth the time and money spent on it. All research has the same purpose: to gain knowledge. Whether your knowledge can be applied, and how visibly, depends on the subject of your research, and the amount of time you spend researching it. Take the example Mrs. Vosbergh gave in her blog of "how does that sea creature maintain its phosphorescent glow?" If you figured that out, maybe you could use that on small boats to increase their visibility at sea.
More generally, I believe that the search for knowledge should never stop, even if a given research area doesn't appear to be helpful. Look at where we are now. We never could have gotten here if people hadn't figured out how to control fire, and who thought that would actually work? And look at how many things were discovered accidentally. Basically what I'm saying is, if more subjects are researched by more people, more useful, or useless, things will be discovered, and the useless things may become useful in the future.

This is a practice post, so you don't really need to read it, but you can if you want

This is just a little post I'm writing to see if this joint is functional. Don't read this, because you might be left wanting more. There really isn't a beginning, middle, and end here, so it's kind of formless. It's...whatever.
Anyway, the goals of this project are to...

1. Learn to use blogs for talking to people and stuff.
2. Figure out what you want and find people who want the same stuff and try to get it.
3. Find out stuff about how chemistry is changing the world.
4. Write about stuff with chemistry and changing the world and stuff and do it creatively.

DONE