Re: gtkpool/gperiodic

[Tim Wilson <wilson@chemsun.chem.umn.edu>]

On Sun, 25 Jul 1999, Robert Hopcroft wrote:

> Not off the top of my head. What I can do is put together a prospective
> or proposed project on chemistry and include information on gtkpool and
> gperiodic along with how to contact the authors. Also I noticed that
> many of the chemistry programs in the SAL database are GPL. Perhaps
> someone coming along could see how to put together a set of programs for
> a chemistry class. Doug, would a simulated chemistry set qualify as
> edutainment.

Greetings everyone,

As a science teacher interested in using free software, I've looked with
interest at the software listing in the SAL database. Unfortunately, the
vast majority of these programs are pretty useless to high school
chemistry courses. Most of them deal with pretty high-powered
thermodynamics, modeling, visualizations, etc. that high school teachers
don't begin to approach in their courses.

I also recall the post by the author of the gtkpool programs regarding
gperiodic. Merely visualizing the motion of various gases would
unfortunately be a fairly boring and probably not all that instructive
exercise. I think the assumptions required to analyze the motion and
behavior of gases would result in all of the simulations looking pretty
much the same. And as was mentioned previously the motion is determined
overwhelmingly by the temp., pressure, and volume of the gas. In fact, the
simple models that we use don't really take into account the differences
in chemistry between the elements.

Going beyond the simplistic models that are used 99.9% of the time
would probably require calculations that would be difficult to run in real
time for more than a couple molecules or atoms.

-Tim

--
Timothy D. Wilson			"A little song, a little dance,
University of MN, chem. dept.		a little seltzer down your 
wilson@chem.umn.edu			pants."   -Chuckles the Clown
Phone: (612) 625-9828                       as eulogized by Ted Baxter