Last week, I determined that it takes 1470.36 2L-bottles of Pepsi (consuming nothing else, allowing the soda to bathe on your teeth every sip) to rot all of your teeth completely. Now, I'm looking for more random/interesting problems to solve on my own using basic conceptual and experimental chemistry. For some reason I've been thinking about the chemistry of everyday life, trying to find cool ways to apply my limited knowledge (2 semesters of General Chemistry in college) to things around me. About a week ago, I read in my textbook that tooth enamel is composed of a mineral called hydroxyapatite Ca5(PO4)3OH, and that tooth decay can be thought of as a solubility equilibrium with the mineral in saliva. Hydroxyapatite dissociates into 3 ions in saliva, and because one of them is OH-, a slightly acidic mouth makes the mineral more soluble. I drink a lot of soda, which is full of acid, so I wanted to quantify how much decay occurs per every cup I drink. Due to a lack of information in some spots (such as the mass of the different types of teeth, the exact amount of some acids in Pepsi, the maximum volume of liquid that can be held in the mouth etc.) I'm sure the number I ultimately got is not highly accurate. But the point is I'm looking for basic problems to think about. My enamel research was entirely conceptual, but I'm also thinking of experiments I can perform on my own. The link below (found during the enamel study) contains a good example of a random household experiment performed for no reason other than curiosity. http://www.science-house.org/index....ow-much-carbon-dioxide-is-in-a-bottle-of-soda Any ideas? I'm looking for problems that I can solve through researching information (cannot find the answer directly) and possibly an experiment I have to design.
have everyone turn off their iphones and computers and talk to each other for an hour. it'll be freaky
