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Discoverer/Developer
Gilbert Lewis (1875-1946) was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts. At the age of 14, Lewis started college at the University of Nebraska. After getting his PhD at Harvard, he taught at MIT. He eventually became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Lewis became part of the National Science Academy in 1913. He did work on relativity and light and matter interactions that complimented Einstein's work on the subject. His student Harold Urey received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering deuterium. In 1916, he published a paper on the covalent bond, and in 1923 he published his theory on acids and bases. The idea of giving students problem sets from which to practice and learn chemistry was largely due to Lewis and his teaching philosophy. Lewis was nominated for the Nobel Prize 35 times, but never received it. Found dead on the floor of his laboratory in Berkely, there is debate as to whether Lewis's death might have been a suicide.
Concept Definition
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Basic
A Lewis acid accepts a pair of electrons while a Lewis base donates a pair of electrons.
Advanced
A Lewis acid accepts a pair of electrons while a Lewis base donates a pair of electrons.
Some examples include:
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3.
Vocabulary
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Important Vocabulary
Term
Context
Classroom Demonstations
Investigate lab procedures suitable for live classroom demonstrations or guided student exploration.
Students requiring adaptations to gain the full benefit of a demonstration may find a worksheet with guided observations useful. Alternatively, a teacher may wish to use a worksheet with guided observations to model what observations all students should be making during a demonstration.
The Demonstration Observation Worksheet is available in
In this Lewis acid/base reaction, the combination of HCl (the Lewis acid) and Ammonia (the Lewis base) forms ammonium chloride, a white gas.
Usage:
No Description available
Safety:
Do experiment in a fume hood.
Wear googles and gloves when preforming the experiment.
Equipment:
2 glass jars or beakers the same size that are around 250 mL
A piece of cardboard big enough to cover the top of a jar/beaker
Materials:
Around 20 mL of ammonia
Around 20 mL of hydrochloric acid (HCl)
Procedure:
Put a tiny amount of HCl in one beaker. Pour in just enough to coat the sides and bottom of the beaker, and pour the excess down the sink. Place cardboard on top of beaker.
In the other beaker, add the ammonia.
Invert the beaker with the HCl and cardboard so it is on top of the beaker with ammonia.
Pull out the cardboard. White smoke should appear.
Notes:
No Description available
Disposal:
All materials may go down the drain.
Difficulty:
No specific experience required
Preparation Time:
5 minutes
Demonstration Time:
1 minutes
Availability of Materials:
Local grocery store
Cost of materials:
$
Last Updated:
Tue 09 Aug 2011 12:45:25 EDT
Viewed:
14991 times viewed
Source:
Sarah Brendzel, May 5, 2011, About.com
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Works Cited
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