Here is where I raise some questions beyond the normal things in the classroom, and suggest that you migh want to just pursue some topics in more depth than we ever could do in the classroom.  You can get up to three additonal extra credit points by answering some of these questions.   I will periodically add things to this list as I think of them, so come back often.

If I were teaching an algebra course, for example, someone might want to learn about famouse women mathematicians.  But I am teaching Chemistry so my main interest is related to that although I am interested in topics and things from the other sciences.

These are the Extra, Extra Credit questions:

• Tell me something about Sir Humphrey Davy (a British Chemist) - this will be a gas for you
• Tell me all you can about the screen door (1887), the first antifungal antibiotic Nystatin (1954), the computer language COBOL (1959), the vacuum method of food preservation (1873), Liquid Paper correction fluid (1955-6), the dishwashing machine (1886), and a cheaper way to make concrete (1988-9)
• What do you think about United States Patent 6,457,474?
• What is the ultimate thing that Newton, Rutherford and Darwin have in common?  [It is not just that they are all dead although that is pretty "ultimate" and is related to the actual answer to this question.]
• Go to www.uspto.gov and research a patent on chemistry and tell me something about what it describes.  Some inventors you might look at to help you are Billy D Vineyard, M Jerome Sabacky, William S Knowles, Gerald L Bachman, Jawed Asrar, Ferdinand B Zienty, and Hans Nufer.
• Go to www.uspto.gov, search the patents and look for "weinkauff" as an inventor and do all years.  You should come up with six (6) patents for me.  --  What are they?
• What one thing do bullet-proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
• Who was the first person to win two Nobel prizes?
• What do yogurt, beer, salami, and sauerkraut have in common?
• Who was Rosalind Franklin?  Why am I asking you about her?
• Pick an element and tell me everything you can about it (but don't just cut and paste from somebody else's work.

When you wrtie up answers to these questions, I want you to show me some thought and some real work.  DO NOT just copy information out of a source and/or off the internet.  Tell me what you think about this.  Prove to me that you deserve the extra credit.

WHO IS ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE SCIENTISTS?

One of my favorite scientists was Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was a Nobel Prize winning physicist.  He was involved in the Manhattan Project during the Second World War.  He also taught for most of his career, and became known to many by his contributions to solving the space shuttle Challenger investigation.  One of the notable things about Prof. Feynman was that he was able to relate Physics (and science in general) to all kinds of people of varying interests and backgrounds.

He was perhaps one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists and thrived on outrageous adventure.  His eyebrow-raising behavior once shocked a Princeton dean's wife to exclaim:  "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!"  (A statement which later became the title to one of his books.)  Feynman was surely the only person in history to solve the mystery of liquid helium, to be commissioned to paint a naked female toreador, and to crack the uncrackable safes guarding the atomic bomb's most critical secrets.  He traded ideas with Einstein and Bohr, discussed gambling odds with Nick the Greek, and accompanied a ballet - on the bongo drums.  His life story is a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, eternal skepticism, and raging chutzpah.