A catalyst for productivity

I must say, I'm a little surprised. I thought the first comment/question I'd receive about the blog would be about the name. It's science geeky enough that a google search does not shed any light on it's meaning. I certainly wasn't trying to alienate you all, it really is a very self serving reminder of what I set out to do here. After six posts I had one person finally ask, so I figured I would bring you all up to speed. Get ready folks, I'm about to teach you a little bit about chemistry. I'll try to make it more tangible and exciting than the first year course that you may have taken. Or, if you've never opened a chemistry (or science) text book, hopefully I'll have explained it in a way that it makes sense to you anyway. So here goes....

The reason I like cooking so much is that, in reality, it's a lot like chemistry. You start with some ingredients, you mix them together, then you have something new. In the cooking world you often see things like, 'mix flour, salt, butter, etc. together, bake and enjoy your delicious biscuits'. Chemical reactions are often written as 'A + B -> C', or in words 'Add A and B together to make C' (where A, B and C are chemical compounds...perhaps a lesson for a different day). That's it, that's what I do during the day.

You may have noticed one very important word in the description of making biscuits. Bake. It's a no brainer that in order to make biscuits from all the ingredients you must pop the mixture in the oven. Otherwise, your dough will remain sticky and not at all appetising. It's the same with chemistry. Often you need to add energy (in the case of the biscuits, heat) to turn A and B into C. But why is this energy needed and how do you know how much is necessary? For any chemical reaction there is an Activation Energy (or Ea, for short) barrier. I realize this sounds fairly abstract, but let me explain. Imagine yourself sitting on the couch in front of the TV at midnight, perfectly comfortable, but also aware that you should migrate to your bed for the night. Your bed is more comfortable and appealing, but in order to get there you need to get out from under the comfy blanket, give a longing glance at the toasty wood stove, climb the stairs to your bed and try to make a warm nest there. I'm sure you will agree that it takes a certain amount of energy to overcome the desire to stay on the couch. By investing the energy you have jumped over a figurative barrier and have reached a more comfortable state. It is much the same with a chemical reaction; an Ea barrier exists between states A/B and C. Upon addition of energy to A and B, C can be made. Make sense?

One of my jobs as a chemist is to make catalysts. Basically, a catalyst decreases the amount of energy needed for a reaction by making the Ea barrier smaller. For example, if there was wood stove by your bed, instead of by the couch, the move to go to bed would require a lot less energy. The wood stove has catalyzed the move, by lowering the Ea barrier. Everyone still with me?

If you remember, my goal for this blog was to make the writing process easier. By doing this I'll be able to write my thesis and graduate with a PhD. In other words, I'm using this blog as a catalyst to lower the activation energy (Ea) barrier for writing.