The last 3 weeks of class will be devoted to independent projects. A project must be proposed and approved by the instructor by March 10th. This will allow the instructor, TA, and student time to collect and order the equipment and/or chemicals needed for the project. There will be a report written at the end of the project and will be due May 6 or 7th. Reports for the independent projects will be in the same style as laboratory reports. The only difference is that the sections of the report may be considerably longer. Every day a report is late, 60 points (or 20 %) will be deducted from the student's report grade. A student can propose an independent project on any research topic that has conceptual relevance to physical chemistry. For students having difficulty deciding on a topic, a list of suggested projects will be provided below:
(i) Laser Light Scattering as a Method of Determining Particle Size.
(ii) Lattice Dynamic Calculations used to Study the Vibration Modes in Crystalline Materials and Polymorphic Transitions.
(iii) Pump-Probe Pulse Laser Experiments used to Study the Binding of CO to Myoglobin.
(iv) Statistical Thermodynamics of Iodine Sublimation.
(v) Lattice Energy of Solid Argon.
(vi) NMR Determination of Paramagnetic Susceptibility.
(vii) Surface Tention of Solutions.
(viii) Enzyme Kinetics.
(ix) Thermodynamic Properties of Elastomers.
(x) Flash Photolysis of Organic Compounds.
(xi) A Monte Carlo Method for Chemical Kinetics and/or Chemical
Thermodynamics.