PowerPoint: Showing Chemistry Bigger Than Life

By Ken Costello

Text in this yellow box are comments about the animation techniques used.

Text in the scroll boxes are what I normally say when the slide is showing.

Samples of PowerPoint animations from various presentations.

To learn the techniques, run the PowerPoint and then stop it after each slide to examine the Custom Animation Window. Bring up the window by going to the SlideShow pull down menu at the top of the screen and then choosing “Custom Animation…”

Click on the animations listed to see its name, the speed, how it starts, and other properties.

Click the small down arrow to the right of the animation name to bring up Effect Options window.

To start the PowerPoint on different slides, either click the small projector screen icon at the bottom left or press Shift-F5.

Elements are the new building blocks

Hydrogen Nitrogen-7

Oxygen-8

Carbon-6

The animation is done with the Circle Motion Path for single electrons and the Spin effect for pairs of electrons. Pairs of electrons are grouped first.

The Fill effect with transparency is used for the spherical boundaries.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen

Carbon-6

Hydrogen

Hydrogen

Compounds are two or more elements that share electrons or have taken or given electrons away.

Again, the Circle Motion path is used for single electrons, and the Spin Effect is use for pairs.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen

Carbon-6

Hydrogen

Hydrogen

Compounds are two or more elements that share electrons.

Here the idea of sharing electrons is presented with electrons that are following custom motion paths (curved type)

When electrons are shared, they don’t just stay around the element that first owned them.

HH

H NC O

Elements are the new building blocks

OH H

CH

C

H

Let’s build ethanol from the water and methane. Note: this isn’t how ethanol is made, but you can see the building block approach.

Straight line motion paths are used. Most started as “Right” Paths because that was the general direction. You can then move the end to wherever you want.

O

CH Hydrocarbons

Gasoline

H

H

H CH

CH

H

CH H

CH H

CH

H

CH

CH

H

HDies

el-12

Oil-20Plas

tic

100

0s

H

H

H CH

CH

H

CH H

CH H

CH

H

CH

CH

H

H

H

H

H CH

CH

H

CH H

CH H

CH

H

CH

CH

H

H

OOC

OO

C

CO

O

Lipids: oils & fats

Hydrocarbons are simple. They are built from only carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms. The number of carbon atoms determines what we use them for.

If we use oxygen atoms, we can make lipids.

HH

H NC

O

O

C

C

NO

H

HH

Ammonia

Acetic acid Vinegar

C

H

H H

Let’s look at ammonia and acetic acid and how the proton from acetic acid may go to ammonia to make ammonium ion

Here I’m using circle motion paths and custom motion paths (curved type).

HH

H NC

O

Amino acids are building blocks for proteins

O

C

C

N

O

H C

H

Amino

acid

Glycine

C

H

H

Alanine

S

Glycine is the simplest of the amino acids. Let’s now make alanine.Sulfur is needed for two of the essential amino acids.

H NC

Amino acids are building blocks for proteins

OC

Glycine

S

H

OH

CN

O

H CH

HH

HH

OCN

O

CH

H

GlycineAmino acids connect as a water molecule is released.

The “Down” motion path was used for water, then adjusted by moving the end. Glycine came in using the “Left” path.

SH N

Amino acids are building blocks for proteins

OC

HOCN

OH C

H

By attaching various combinations of the 5 above atoms at this location, living things make a total of 20 amino acids that then build all the proteins they need.

This is how nylon is made. A mixture of Hexamethylene Diamine (one with green nitrogen atoms) and Adipic acid (one with red oxygen atoms). This synthesis happens spontaneously with water molecules being released.

Various “Up/Down/Left/Right” motion paths were used. A spin effect was used at the end.

Chemistry changes the way you look at the world.

I found te picture of the eyes but added various autoshape objects. They were rotated with the Spin Emphasis effect, which was set to repeat using the “Effect Option” menu.

When writers try to explain quantum chemistry they often resort to the fantasy world of Alice in Wonderland.

This effect was simple. It used the Flash bulb Emphasis effect. However, I set it to be very slow at 8 seconds using the Timing menu and typing in 8.

Here I do two effects on the text at the same time. For example, I’m using motion paths with either a fade in zoom or a fade out. On the original slide, I followed this animation with a movie clip from the Matrix.

If you choose to stay in this class…

0.07 nm

This stick figure is made by placing carbon monoxide molecules onto a surface using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope. Each piece was made with a carbon monoxide molecule, with atoms only 0.07 nanometers across.

The “drawing” seems childish until you realize how small the carbon dioxide molecules are.

You are familiar with needlepoint. By placing small stitches on a surface, you can make designs.

Imagine you are going to make this snowflake design and each stitch is an atom.

Here the stitches are much larger than atoms. To get a sense of the size of atoms, we must place this needlepoint pattern far way.

Yes, from this distance we can realize how small those stitches are. However, we have to pull back even farther to have them the size of atoms.

Now imagine that your hand is very large and you are trying to place those stitches (atoms) in that needlepoint pattern there on Earth.

Do you now have an appreciation of how amazing it is to place atoms into a pattern?

This animation is simple. Mostly just fade in and fade out plus some Grow/shrink effects.

When the Earth was photographed from the moon, it was often described as the Big Blue Marble.

A marble is looked upon as beautiful but static– motionless.

Of course we know better. From a distance, we can’t see the movement of cars, animals, people, wind, and waterfalls. However, that doesn’t mean all this activity is not happening.

When we look at real marbles, we have the impression they just sit there– motionless.

Let’s make Earth marble size

This is not true. The atoms are in constant motion and are responding to radio ways as well as other types of light. Infrared light is causing the molecules to vibrate. Visible light is causing the electrons to jump to higher orbits absorbing and emitting certain colors. Light is also be slowed down as it interacts with the atoms causing the light to be refracted into a rainbow of colors.

In the original slide I show a video clip I made that shows this motion.

I created the effect that was seen on computer screens in Matrix. Strips are flown in and are set to repeat.

One thing Neo learned in the Matrix was that he needed to understand it at the most basic level. Once he did, he could control it. Chemistry is very similar.

01011011 = “m” key01001011 = “M” key

Ctrl key shuts off 5th & 7th switches

Shift key turns off 5th switch

00001011 = Enter key

LaunchNotepad

To most people the keys on the keyboard are just letters. To a person who knows the underlying makeup, they can do things that seem impossible. For example, let’s say the Enter key stops working. Knowing that the “m” key building blocks of bits are very similar to those of the “Enter” key allows that person to use the “m” key along with the Ctrl key to do the same as the Enter key. You can launch Notepad to demonstrate that.

When you know chemistry, there’s a new level of looking at the world around you.

When electrons are accelerated and then stopped, a photon of light will be generated. If these photos are of high enough energy they can combine to form an electron/positron pair.

Here is an actual tracking of the production of a electron/positron pair.

The voltage needed to create an electron is about one million volts. This is the voltage that creates a bolt of lightning. This voltage pushes electrons from the sky to the ground, but the electrons are slowed down by the air. If they weren’t, it would be possible that two electrons accelerated by a million volts striking the ground would give off light of enough energy to create a new electron.

What kind of voltage do you need to generate a photons with high energy needed to create protons?

The lightning was drawn with the scribble tool under the Draw toolbar Autoshapes menu Lines

Quarks of six “flavor” or “colors” and their anti-quarks are created when high energy gamma rays with energy of about 300 million volts collide.

Quarks Anti-quarks

UD

U UD

Proton

UD D

Neutron

+2/3

-1/3

SiO2*2H2O

AlO3*2H2O

Needles of mullite, Al6Si2O13, begin to grow. These strengthen the clay.

Temper is added to provide a way for the water vapor to escape. It usually consists of sand or crushed bones.

Clay is made of layers of silicon oxide and aluminum oxide. Water is bonded to these molecules.

When water is added, water gets in between these layers. This causes the clay to become pliable.

Mild heat will drive out the water that is in between the layers.

High temperatures will break the bonds of the water that is attached to silicon and aluminum oxides.

As the water is driven out, the layers shrink and begin to fuse. Mullite

This chart uses the log of concentrations in order for the smaller concentrations of elements to be visible.

$10$100

$1000

$1

103

102

101100

$.10

10-1 10-2

$.01

3-

2-

1-

0-

-1-

-2-

-3-

$10

$100

$1

$.10

$.01

$1000

Here we see that large numbers and small numbers are difficult to graph together. However, if we convert each to a power of 10 and graph the exponent, the amounts are not so drastically different.

The animations are simple but effective. Bar graphs enter with a wipe up.

During a supernova the collapse of the neutron core has the mass of During a supernova the collapse of the neutron core has the mass of 500,000 Earths traveling at ¼ the speed of light. If that happened to 500,000 Earths traveling at ¼ the speed of light. If that happened to us here on Earth, our sky would be filled with Earths coming at us. It us here on Earth, our sky would be filled with Earths coming at us. It would take about 5 seconds after they passed the moon.would take about 5 seconds after they passed the moon.

Only the zoom effect was used here. All but one Earth were set to animate “With Previous” so they all came together. The original Earth image had black space around it. If you click on the black with the “Set Transparent Color” tool on the picture toolbar, the black will be transparent. That way the Earths can overlap each other.

During the supernova explosion the outward moving matter is moving so fast that it compresses and heats whatever it collides with to temperatures of 1010 to 1011 K... much hotter than anything we have encountered in our studies of stars so far.

Here is an actually picture of a supernova.

Here is another of the same supernova.

This animation shows the power of using three animation effects at the same time on the same object. The words follow a motion path as they spin and shrink. The flask has a semi-transparent effect to make it look like glass.

If fluorine was an animal, it would be a shark. The next slide shows the shark (fluorine) going after a circling electron. The animation runs automatically. There is sound also, so be at the ready with your volume control.

This is an effective animation that uses a slow faded zoom to bring the shark into view dramatically. At the same time the shark follows a motion path to the electron past the glass ball of fluorine. The glass has a semi-transparent effect to make it behave like glass.

A zoom exit with sound usually scares the students, which they enjoy.

Water: the Universal SolventOne side of water is negatively charged because the oxygen atom keeps the shared electrons longer than the hydrogen atoms. As a result theoxygen side is negatively chargedand the hydrogen side of water is positively charged.

O

Water: the Universal SolventLike a magnet that pulls on things that are magnetic, water pulls on things that are electrically charged. Magnets have north & south poles, water has positive and negative poles and thus called a polar solvent.Since unlike charges attract, the negative end of water will be attracted to the positive sodium ion. The positive end of water will be attracted to the negative chloride ion.Since water is always in motion, it will pull on the ionic compound and move the ions away from each other. This dissolves the ionic compound.

OO

Na+ Cl-

O

OO

The motion paths with some spin effects are good ways to show this concept.

Wax does not repel waterWe’ve heard that wax or oils repel water. But that isn’t true. Water is so attracted to other water molecules that anything between them is squeezed out of the way.

OO

Oildroplet

O

OO

Simple motion paths with some spin makes this concept easier to understand.

Soaps & DetergentsSoaps and detergents are chains that have one end that is like oil and has no charge and the other end is charged.

OO

OildropletO

OO

SO4-

SO4-SO4

-

SO4-

SO4- SO4

-

O

The effect is good, and all done with motions paths (custom & line) and spin effects.