Fast-Food-Chemistry

My dayjob is, for one, being a PhD-Student, and for the other, having the privilege of being a teacher's assistant of some sort. This means that I have to help grade tests, and also that I get to read some special examples of human insight into chemistry.

I want to share a few of those 'insights' with you, as they can be somewhat unexpected, and, if spun right, even outright fun.

I've selected a few of the things that have come up over the time I've held that position. There are a few that remind me of the concept of alchemy:

During the oxidation of metallic zinc, electrons are released, that go to the cathode and become Copper.
Translated from german

The student was trying to explain what happens in a galvanic cell, messing up the latter part by creating (a lot of) matter from simple electrons. The important part, that copper ions accept the electrons and become copper, has been dropped.

But there are more, very interesting concepts, like this one:

NaCl + H₂O → HCl + NaOH

If this reaction were true, we couldn't cook our spaghetti at home, as the process of cooking would release hydrochloric acid, which is quite a health hazard if inhaled.

Sicilium
and
Meganesium

There are two totally new elements for you. Who would need something like a LHC to make these? They already exist on paper. Their properties ... are unknown. The authors didn't include them on their "papers" ...

And then there are those who write their protocols on ... something having an autocorrection feature. That those go haywire at times is nothing new, but in this case, it is quite amusing:

2 LEDs having at least 400 McDonald's light intensity [...]

And thus Fast-Food-Chemistry was born.