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Chemical Turbulence : Belousov Zhabotinsky reaction

Typically one thinks about chemical reactions as walking down a straight path from home to destination.

A + B —-> C ( A reacts with B to give C). 

But this necessarily need not be true:

In a class of reactions known as Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, or BZ reaction. the reactions undergo a chaotic oscillating behavior for a substantial amount of time before they end up at the final product C .

Oxidation waves

It was observed in 1970 by Zaikin and Zhabotinsky that by using a thin layer of unstirred solution with the ferroin-catalyzed BZ reaction one could observe periodic propagation of concentric chemical waves from point sources.

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky oscillator reaction is known for the striking oxidation waves that it produces.

In the above animation you can see symmetrical circular wave fronts being generated, but when the concentration parameters are tweaked it is possible to observe spiral waves as well.

And when one propagating wave meets another, they mutually annihilate each other.

One important note concerning this reaction is that this chaotic oscillating behavior that one observes does not last forever and dies out eventually.       

                                     Source Video by nater06      

Another reaction that is analogous to the BZ reaction is the Briggs–Rauscher reaction (see below)

Simulating the BZ reaction

Some of the  essential features of this reaction can be captured in a simple reaction model involving three chemical substrate.

The simulations are able to go so far as to predict the spirals and waves that one observes during the reaction.

But the complete model for this nonlinear chemical oscillator is not entirely known and still remains a mystery..

References:

[1] The Belousov-Zhabotinsky Oscillator: An overview

[2] Ways in which the BZ reaction is studied

[3] Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction on Scholarpedia

Men overestimate intelligence in science class, study shows.

A new study found that men in STEM subject areas overestimate their own intelligence and credentials, underestimate the abilities of female colleagues, and that as a result, women themselves doubt their abilities — even when hard evidence such as grades say otherwise. 

By any definition, Gwen Pearson is pretty smart. She’s got a Ph.D in entomology and she is now a science writer and education coordinator.  

But she remembers how often she was told she wasn’t good enough, simply because she was female.

“As a graduate student, a fellow male student said, to my face, that he had no idea how I was admitted to the program because I clearly wasn’t smart enough to be there,” Pearson recalls.

Women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers have countless similar stories.