{"id":7731,"date":"2020-07-03T06:17:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T06:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7731"},"modified":"2020-07-03T06:17:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T06:17:07","slug":"when-language-gets-in-the-way-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/07\/03\/when-language-gets-in-the-way-of-science\/","title":{"rendered":"When language gets in the way of science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There I was trying to help my stuck-at-home grandson with his chemistry school work. \u00a0It was an on-line test about reactions such as what happens when an iron nail is put into copper sulphate solution, or carbonates and other compounds are heated. \u00a0It did not go well. \u00a0For example, despite having a lot of chemistry in my background, I did not know that Iron(II) hydroxide, when heated, gives off hydrogen. \u00a0That seems a very abstruse piece of knowledge. \u00a0I now know that it's\u00a0the <a title=\"Schikorr reaction\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Schikorr_reaction\">Schikorr reaction<\/a>:<\/p>\n<dl>\n<dd>3 Fe(OH)<sub>2<\/sub> \u2192 Fe<sub>3<\/sub>O<sub>4<\/sub> + H<sub>2<\/sub> + 2 H<sub>2<\/sub>O \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0But how ridiculous to expect a 12-year old to know this.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p>Then there was this question: \u00a0\u00a0\"What gas is produced when a carbonate undergoes thermal decomposition?\"<\/p>\n<p>\"undergoes thermal decomposition\", I ask you. \u00a0This is brainless. What's wrong with \"... is decomposed by heating\"? \u00a0Or even, \"... is heated\"? \u00a0Thus a test of science becomes (again) a test of English jargon.<\/p>\n<p>You will be wondering, I know, given all the focus on carbonates (calcium carbonate featured a lot), whether an opportunity was taken to link it to the carbon cycle and climate change. \u00a0Sadly, you already know the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There I was trying to help my stuck-at-home grandson with his chemistry school work. \u00a0It was an on-line test about reactions such as what happens when an iron nail is put into copper sulphate solution, or carbonates and other compounds...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}