Experiment and Verify

Experiment and Verify Using Powerful Software in Chemistry

As technology becomes more powerful and faster, software improves and more accurately approximates the experimental reality. The down side of this is that software needs to be updated or replaced. This fact was patently obvious to two members of the Chemistry Department, Michael Wedlock, Associate Professor of Chemistry, and Donald Jameson, Professor and Chairperson of the Chemistry Department. Although they had a reasonably good idea of what they wanted, they met with Eric Remy, Director of Instructional Technology and Training, himself a Ph.D. in Chemistry who specialized in Wedlock’s area, Physical Chemistry.

After discussing their problem with Mike and Don, Eric reviewed the different packages that the trio decided would be accessible by Gettysburg College. He recommended that the Department consider HyperChem® by HyperCube, the preference of Wedlock and Jameson. This software is used by most graduate chemistry programs and an increasing number of undergraduate programs. Eric negotiated the purchase price for a license and purchase of the software. With the Chemistry Department and IT installed HyperChem® on the four PC’s in Physical Chemistry Lab and also on all of the machines in the PC lab in 204 McCreary.

Mike uses the program in his Chemistry 305, Physical Chemistry, labs. During the Fall Term 23 Chemistry and Biology/Molecular Biology majors took the course and during the Spring Term 15 Chemistry majors are enrolled. They use the program to verify results that they obtained in their wet lab such as measuring and comparing the resonance energy of Oxygen to that of Benzene and Cyclohexene. They also use a real and virtual Bond Calorimeter to measure the Hydrogen Bond strength in several molecules. The results obtained by the two methods compare quite well.

According to Wedlock, students seem to enjoy the straight-forward interface of HyperChem® as well as seeing different modes, actual and virtual, for attacking problems in Physical Chemistry. Students in Chemistry 105 and 107 while not using all of the power of the software, get a feel for its use by visualizing molecules and using other visualization features contained in HyperChem®.

Mike says that another benefit from using HyperChem® is that, just as with any of the other tools that exist in the Department, students become familiar and comfortable with the software. Because of its wide spread use in graduate programs, students are well prepared for graduate school or many of the other avenues that are open by a quality education in Chemistry.