Exp Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Exp - Essay Example Using gloves during the collection of the diphenylmethanol, 30g of crushed ice was placed in a 250mL beaker, and 3mL of concentrated HCL was then carefully added to the frozen water. The reaction mixture was then slowly poured into the acid in the fumehood very carefully so as to avoid foaming over. The solid product was collected by suction filtration, and the crystals were washed twice with 15mL of ice-cold water. The crystals were dried thoroughly to avoid recrystallisation due to hexane being immiscible with water. Once dried, the crude product was weighed, and a crude yield was calculated. 0.1 of the crude product was then placed aside for later TLC analysis. During the third stage, the crude product was recrystalised from hexane. Care was taken not to use too much solvent, and because hexane is flammable and has a low boiling point, the hot plate settings were kept below maximum in order to minimise the risk of fire. The purified diphenylmethanol was then collected, and its mass was determined once dry. The percentage recovery of the recrystallisation and the overall yield of the reaction were both calcuated. 0.1g of the recrystallised product was kept aside for later TLC analysis. The melting point of the recrystallised material was now able to be determined at some point, or else during the next stage. For the TLC analysis, solutions were prepared of benzophenone, crude diphenylmethanol, and recrystallised diphenylmethanol, by dissolving 0.1g of solid in 1 ml of dichloromethane. It was recommended to use vials instead of test tubes for this purpose. The eluant for developing the TLC was 1 mL of ethyl acetate dissolved in 5 mL of ligroin, and 12mL of this eluant was required. The TLC was spotted with the three solutions and the plate developed. The spots were then circled under the UV lamp, and the Rf values were

Philosophy - Free

Philosophy Free Will vs Determinism Essay The dialogue between philosophers over the existence of free will versus the inevitability of determinism is a debate that will always exist. The discussion centers around the true freedom of humans to think and act according to their own judgment versus the concept that humans are intrinsically bound by the physical laws of the universe. Before I enter this chicken and the egg debate I need to quantify my terms: Free will is defined by the great philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas as â€Å"vis electiva† or free choice. It is the ability of man to contemplate and judge the effects of the actions he is about to take. †¦But man acts from judgment, because by his apprehensive power he judges that something should be avoided or sought. But because this judgment, in the case of some particular act, is not from a natural instinct but from some act of comparison in the reason, therefore he acts from free judgment and retains the power of being inclined to various things. † (Aquinas. Suma Theologica) Determinism is a complex notion but is best described by David Hume as the notion that something cannot come from nothing and that all actions have causes preceding them. I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent without itself. And that therefore, when first a man hath an appetite or will to something, to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will, the cause of his will, is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing. So that whereas it is out of controversy, that of voluntary actions the will is the necessary cause, and by this which is said, the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not, it followeth, that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes, and therefore are necessitated. (Hume. Liberty and Nessessity. ) Philosophy and world religion alike were born of the same origins. Each of the two ancient disciplines arose from the quest for the answers to life’s ominous questions. These human questions, archetypical to people of all geographic locations; where did we come from; why are we here; where do we go when we die; unite us as a race. It is no coincidence that each religion and theology from all four corners of the earth tackles these black holes of human logic. Each religion carves their own individual explanations of these unanswerable questions into their core belief systems, each one centrally different than others. However, they all share one common thought; each shares a belief in an afterlife determined by the choices made in life. Free will is the common denominator in all world religions, because all share the essential concept of morality. The widespread acceptance of the concept of morality implies that there is a choice to be had at each and every juncture or life. The choice comes from recognition of good and evil. For good and evil to exist, then there has to be the ability to decipher between the two and also decide to accept one over the other. The existence of morality alone proves that free will exists, because without the freedom to choose right or wrong in any given situation there would be no qualitative measure of the â€Å"rightness† or â€Å"wrongness† of ones actions. David Hume comments on the origin of morality and its place in our everyday decision making processes, â€Å"Only when you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation† (Hume.  Treatise of Human Nature). In other words, there are no outside stimuli that can decipher good from evil; the line can only be drawn by internal thought. Hume was a naturalist in that his vision of the world and therefore stance of philosophy was based directly through the experiences of the senses. His stance on many issues directly originated from his ability to experience it with the five senses, and on the subject of morality he takes exception. Even he recognizes the existence of morality in everyday life, even though it cannot be explained through the lens of the senses. It would seem that morality’s acceptance must therefore prove that free will exists, but there is one essential school of thought yet to weigh on this topic; science. Science was the latest bloomer of the three major disciplines of existential explanation and in the post modern era is becoming more and more popular. As the world becomes further secularized and the reaches of scientific logic continue to exceed their grasp, many of the world’s intellectuals identify â€Å"truth† on a scientific scale. Science does not support the theory of morality, because it can’t be proven to exist. The notion of â€Å"free-will†, something which world religion and philosophies alike recognize as a fundamental part of our human anatomy, is called into question in a few simple and logical ways. Science supports the theory of determinism as the only logical explanation of the unfolding of the actions of our lives. First off, science has recently developed the discipline known to us as physics, in which the laws of the universe have been defined. In the short time in which humans have been graced by the scientific understanding of the laws of the universe, human kind has yet to fully step back and contemplate the magnitude of this discovery. In generations past, humans believed that we were made special with â€Å"free will†, but now we know that like all things in the universe we are subject to the physical laws. This is a huge step forward in rational thinking because it allows us to understand that our previously God given concept of â€Å"free will† was really a result of a lack of understanding of the deterministic laws of the universe. For instance a law as simple and commonly accepted as â€Å"gravity† challenges the idea of free will. Gravitational pull determines that no matter the size of an object, once separate from the surface of the earth will be dragged back down at the same force every time. This is a simple concept that we take for granted, but it works in the free will v. determinism argument. We are ruled by gravity, and therefore all of our lives activities answer to it. We can’t choose to jump off a building and float in the air because we’ll be pulled back to the ground to our imminent deaths. We can’t choose to stay younger and keep our skin tight to our faces because gravity’s long-term effect causes our skin to droop down towards the ground. The choices I just listed may seem farfetched to some, however, if we examine the notion that we have â€Å"free will† in the empirical sense of the word we see that not all of our decisions are controlled by us, and that we fall victim to the tyrannical rule of the physical laws of the universe. We aren’t truly â€Å"free† to create our own actions in life. Albert Einstein offers a particularly apt synopsis, â€Å"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. (Albert Einstein) The rule of physical law aside, which hinders us from truly being â€Å"free† to choose our own actions in life, is a much more simple scientific argument that dispels the notion of free will. For example: Say a 20 year old man murders another man in cold blood. They have no affiliation, no prior knowledge of who each other is, or reason to dislike each other. Man A walks up to random Man B and shoots and kills him. Was this action of Man A a result of â€Å"free will†? To examine the notion fully you need to look at his action coming from two sources. Either Man A was born with the moral flaw to allow himself to find killing another human acceptable, or that Man A was influenced during the course of his life by interactions and actions of others and came to that conclusion based on his own experience. There is no other explanation for Man A to willingly choose to open fire on Man B and kill him. If we look at the first option, Man A’s natural moral compass was skewed, allowing for him to conceive the notion that killing another is okay. This speaks to the determinant nature of our chemical makeup. Its possible his DNA made a mistake coding somewhere and he developed overtime and understood that killing another is â€Å"wrong† or maybe that his entire sense of â€Å"right from wrong† was skewed inside his mind. This would lead Man A to lead a life normally on the outside, and yet without regard for consequence, open fire on another man and kill him as easily as he could have held a door for him. This is the idea that he naturally had the capacity to kill, and that he could not control it. Eventually one of his animalistic impulses would finally stick and he’d be in the right place at the right time, and that it was only a matter of time until he killed someone. If you don’t subscribe to that theory and believe that he chose to kill Man B that day, try and consider that the results will still be pre-determined. If Man A killed Man B due to his choice, then his own â€Å"free will† and judgment that he finds reprehensible to kill another man can’t be attributed to truly â€Å"free† will of choice. Not every human kills others as part of their natural lifestyle, as they might kiss or mate with another. In fact a very small percentage of people in the world murder other humans, and this begs the question of why? What makes this small percentage of people â€Å"choose† to kill another person? The answer is that if they choose to do it, and they weren’t previously miswired so as said in the prior paragraph, then they must have been influenced by their surroundings. When Man A was six years old he didn’t choose to murder Man B, the events of his life led him to make this decision about whether or not murder was okay. This is yet another reason that he wasn’t truly free to choose; outside influence hinders the ability to choose freely. Whether he was abused, molested, lost a loved one, or just plain fed up with the monotony of everyday life in society, something pushed him over the edge. Something allowed for him to justify his actions; that something is outside influence. This deterministic train of thought explains why people do what they do, but not when. What makes us actually hit the point of no return, or when will the right opportunity hit the right mood leading the right action? (In our example the murder of Man B) The paradox between â€Å"free will† and â€Å"determinism† exists because of the influence of the different schools of thought. If one aligns his personal truth based on religious fervor, then an understanding of â€Å"free will† can exist logically and on the other hand if one bases his logic around science then â€Å"determinism† seems to be the only answer. So where does that leave philosophy, the great bridge between the two polarized schools of thought? It leaves philosophy somewhere in the middle, examining the validity of both sides of the argument, and helping to shed light on the debate over whether or not we truly are free to make a choice or if we are merely floating along the currents of the universe. Personally, I’m lost somewhere in the middle, hoping that the answer to this time-old question will be revealed.

Crazy Drivers Essay -- essays research papers

I do not know how many times I have been driving down the road when someone does something stupid, ranging from pulling out in front of me or tailgating. More and more drivers enter the road every year and it seems as if less and less of them know how to drive. As a teen I often get stereotyped as a bad driver but this is a very unfair judgment. The fact is I have helped prevent accidents the closest I have ever been to being in an accident was the fault of an older gentleman. Still the numbers do not lie teens have the most accidents of any age bracket. Why do teens have the highest accident rate? I believe it is because of inexperience not bad habits. Most teens have only been driving for a very short time, if at all, when they receive their license this leads to accidents. People get ...

An internal locus of control Essay

An internal locus of control is â€Å"the belief that one’s fate is determined by one’s own behavior. † While the external locus of control is â€Å"the belief that what happens is determined not by one’s own actions but by powerful others, luck, and external forces† (Kassin and Wrightsman 1988, 32). What this is saying is that the psychological process of defining the reasoning behind why someone is doing something is that there is either an internal or external locus of control that is determining the factors around the individual. According to the book on page 313 there are times when a judge can decide that a person who has a particular background, occupation or situation would not be a good juror for a trial. This is because their internal locus of control could sway their decision making ability based on what they know and what they have utilized in their profession. In one instance that was described in the book there were two jurors that were kept out of a trial based on their own internal locus of control. One of these jurors was a scientist while the other worked in credit management. Based on the case it was considered that these two potential jurors might not be able to look at the situation completely unbiased and therefore these two jurors were let go from the jury. This is one example on how an internal locus of control can affect someone who is a potential juror (Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, and Nietzel 2006). A way that the external locus of control can affect someone who is a juror is a bit different. What this means is that someone is being influenced by outside influences which would make them biased in some way to the decision making process. According to the book on page 303 there is a discussion about the interviewing that occurred in the O. J. Simpson trial when looking for jurors. The overwhelming conclusion was that there was a prevalence for African American women to think that some forms of abuse were okay in relationships and this is an external influence to their overall opinions of things. Therefore this influence could influence how the jurors felt about the abuse that O. J. ’s wife had suffered from and therefore they might have a bias (Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, and Nietzel 2006). Provide an opinion on whether jurors are able to disregard inadmissible evidence using theories discussed in the text, why or why not? According to the book on pages 338-340 there are a number of ways that a juror can look into disregarding evidence that has been determined to be inadmissible. Whether or not this is really possible is a different story. The text describes some different ways that the evidence can be disregarded. These include the reactance theory which is if instructed to disregard certain information the overall decision making ability of the juror could be compromised. Through this theory it is common that someone would use some type of thought suppression to block the material from their thoughts. It is thought that even though this material has been marked as inadmissible that it could possibly still influence the jury’s overall decision (Greene, Heilbrun, Fortune, and Nietzel 2006). In my opinion it could be possible for a juror to disregard inadmissible information however it would be very difficult and it might cause problems for the individual as well. It would be difficult to forget something that was mentioned if it was something that would strongly influence one’s decision however if it was material that was not a big deal then it would not be likely that this would have much influence. In one study that was conducted jurors who were given proacquittal inadmissible information were less likely to convict than those who were given proconviction inadmissible information (Thompson, Fong, and Rosenhan 1981).

Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Clinton Kopas Susan Gabriel English 102 December 1, 2011 The Goal of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Research studies are constantly being conducted in order to improve certain aspects of human life and knowledge. In many cases, these research studies involve human test subjects. One of the more famous studies involving human test subjects was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that began in 1932. Most have heard of this study, few would ever claim that any good came of it.What had originally been a research study aimed at improving knowledge dealing with syphilis in the black male, turned into an extremely long and detrimental study that damaged hundreds of lives. Considering the damage that was done to the subjects and their families, it is easy to wonder if this study actually provided any real advances in medicine or medical knowledge. The origin of the study had good motives, being that it was to promote the health of blacks in the South. The U. S. Public Health Service collaborated with t he Julius Rosenwald Fund to conduct demonstration programs to control syphilis in southern counties.This failed due to funding issues, and the project had to be scrapped. However, the PHS was anxious â€Å"to salvage something of value from the project† (Thomas). So in 1932, a group of doctors recruited a total of 399 syphilis infected black men from Macon County, Alabama to participate in a study concerning the study of â€Å"bad blood†. The organizers took their initial idea and converted â€Å"the original treatment program into a nontherapeutic human experiment aimed at compiling data on the progression of the disease on untreated African-American males† (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner).This study became formally known as the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner; Thomas). The formal name that was applied to this study may imply the true motives of the researchers behind it. The study was not necessarily meant to fi nd major breakthroughs in medicine, but to simply study the effects of untreated syphilis. The researchers attempted to justify what they were doing by saying it was going to be for a greater good, and that these men got more treatment than they would have gotten otherwise.This may be true in a sense, but the men in the study were still intentionally withheld from treatment once penicillin was known to cure syphilis. By 1948, penicillin was known to be the most and best effective cure for syphilis. The study went on for 22 more years even though a cure had been found. There is no point in attempting to learn anything more about an infection when a cure has been found. The only treatment that the infected men received was treatment involving arsenicals and heavy metals.This type of treatment was not nearly as effective and researchers knew it would not cure the men entirely, just keep them from being infectious (Reverby). It might not be going too far to even say that the researchers were conducting this experiment on the basis of pure curiosity. After all, there could not be much advancement made just studying the effects of syphilis in blacks compared to whites. Much about syphilis had already been known prior to the beginning of the Tuskegee Study. German scientists had already discovered most of what there is to know about syphilis over 20 years before the Tuskegee experiments had begun. The cause of syphilis, the stages of the diseases development, and the complications . . . . were all known to medical science in the early 1900’s† (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner). It has been stated by many journalists and even some that were involved in the experiment, that nothing was gained from this long and drawn out experiment. All signs begin to point that it truly was an experiment based solely on curiosity. The black men that participated in the study were poor sharecroppers that would do and believe anything that the doctor told them. Most of these men had never even seen a doctor before in their lives.These men were promised free medical care for their bad blood, and drawn in by signs that claimed â€Å"last chance for treatment†. The doctors and scientists conducting the research had church leaders and other respected members of the community help to enlist people to participate in the study. The researchers even enlisted the help of a black nurse and admired her ability to help them gain the trust of the participants. If the researchers needed to lie to a group of people in order to conduct their experiment, these men would have been some of these easiest to fool (Infoplease; Thomas).The researchers that were involved in the Tuskegee Study are said to have been fairly liberal for the time and open to the education of blacks. However it seems that there was some sort of racist mind set involved in this scheme. The researchers seem to have had no regard to other human life and treated the men like lab rats. The researcher s even made sure that their goal would not be interrupted by others. They went to great lengths to make sure all medical professionals in the area participated in the study and gave orders not to give treatment to the men.The black men were even excluded from the draft during WWII to keep their research from being interrupted (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner; Thomas) As the years went by, the study did not become less organized and forgotten. There were meetings held and new people were added to the project. The experiment was constantly reviewed throughout the years as the focus changed. Ethical issues were not brought up until halfway through the 1960’s, over 30 years after the experiment had begun. During the 1950’s, the focus turned to the aging of syphilis and the negative impact it had on the body.It was quite clear that syphilis caused great damage over time and would shorten the life span of the host. Even at this point in the study, when so many men had passed awa y and others had gone unaccounted for, the study continued. The researchers believed that the study had gone on for so long that the men were untreatable anyways, even with use of penicillin (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner). To continue a research study like this and deny men treatment just on the basis of curiosity seems too unethical to be true. But all signs point to this especially when considering another research study that took place during the same time period.From 1946 to 1948, the American government performed research in Guatemala that involved intentionally infecting Guatemalan subjects with syphilis. The idea was to test the effectiveness of penicillin on different stages of syphilis. A very interesting detail is that a man by the name of Dr. John C. Cutler was involved not only in the Guatemalan study, but the Tuskegee study as well. It is strange that although Dr. Cutler was involved in both experiments, he did not choose to test the effectiveness of penicillin on the me n who were already infected with syphilis in the Tuskegee Study.Instead, he and his colleagues chose to allow syphilis infected prostitutes to sleep with Guatemalan prisoners. This truly shows the ethical value that the researchers held and what their true motives were (Villaroasa). Dr. Cutler and the other men involved in the Tuskegee research had no interest in any kind of advancement with the prevention of syphilis. A kind of bureaucracy was formed that helped fuel this unethical study. Men who were involved in the Tuskegee study would be promoted to surgeon general of the U. S. Public Health Service. Dr.Cutler even obtained the position of assistant surgeon general in the PHS. Dr. Cutler defended the integrity of the study up until his death (Thomas; Villarosa) It is hard to imagine that an idea that began with such good intentions could have turned into the catastrophe that was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The men who conducted this study seemed to have been fueled by a strange curiosity that they masked with the idea of medical advancement. It is clear that the researchers did not view people with darker skin colors as equal, as they treated them like lab animals.It is evident and even admitted by some involved in the study that there were no advances in medicine because of the study. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male only came to a close because of a national press release in 1972. By this time, over 370 men that had been used for research were either dead or believed to be dead. If the researchers had any true notion to help them, that number would have been much smaller. Not only had this study affected the men directly involved in it; it affected the men’s wives and their children as well.There is no questioning the goal of the experiment being to see what would happen to someone if syphilis was left untreated. The doctors could have only continued this experiment based off of some strange curiosity. It is possible tha t some of them may have believed what they were doing was for the better, but that is hard to imagine. Nothing was gained from the experiments in the Tuskegee Study. The only possible advancement would be the understanding of ethics for future research. Works Cited Fourtner, A. W. , C. R. Fourtner, and C. F. Herreid. â€Å"†Bad Blood†: A Case Study of the Tuskegee Syphilis Project. Philosophy. tamucc. edu. Texas A&M University. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. Reverby, Susan M. â€Å"Listening to Narratives from the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. † Lancet 377. 977B (2011): 1646-647. TheLancet. com – Home Page. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. Thomas, Stephen B. â€Å"The Legacy of Tuskegee. † Thebody. com. HealthCentral Network, Jan. -Feb. 2000. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. â€Å"The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. † Infoplease. com. Pearson Education, 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. Villarosa, Linda. â€Å"The Guatemala Syphilis Experiment's Tuskegee Roots. † Theroot. com. The Slate Gro up, 02 Oct. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

Perrines Literature Structure, Sound, Sense 11th Ed. (Poetry) Essay Example

Perrines Literature Structure, Sound, Sense 11th Ed. (Poetry) Essay Example Perrines Literature Structure, Sound, Sense 11th Ed. (Poetry) Paper Perrines Literature Structure, Sound, Sense 11th Ed. (Poetry) Paper Essay Topic: Poetry Alliteration The repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words. From stem to stem. Cacophony A harsh, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds Imagery The representation through language of sense experience Personification A figure of speech wherein human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept Stanza Equivalent of paragraph in poetry. A group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem Simile A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. Metaphor A figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike Onomatopoeia The use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound. Cuckoo, honk, meow Didactic Poetry, fiction, or drama having as a primary purpose to teach or preach Rhetorical Poetry Poetry using artificially eloquent language, that is, language too high-flown for its occasion and unfaithful to the full complexity of human experience Sentimental Poetry Poetry that attempts to manipulate the readers emotions in order to achieve a greater emotional response than the poem itself really warrants Hyperbole Obvious and intentional exaggeration not to be taken literally. To wait an eternity. Assonance The repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words Consonance The repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words Allusion A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history. Metonymy A figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience. the bottle for strong drink, or count heads (or noses) for count people. Couplet Two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme Denotation The basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word Cannotation What a word suggests beyond its basic dictionary definition. A words overtones of meaning Oxymoron A figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in cruel kindness or to make haste slowly. Paradox A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

Mingus essays

Mingus essays Two Portraits of Charles MingusOne in the Lived Medium of Film and Another Music is a lived, performative medium that cannot be fully encompassed in description. Even when an individual piece of music is rendered into print in an effective and moving fashion, it still changes the nature of the music itself into something differentnamely, into a piece of prose that is a crafted example of the written art, rather than a work of music that is a moving and vibrant work of sound. One of the greatest jazz musicians of recent date is that of Charles Mingus. His work and his life cry out for a biography of his contribution to the musical medium and of his life as a performer. How to render the genius of the man in such a way that his personality and his contribution to musical history can be understood' Perhaps the best, albeit imperfect way, turn to print only as a way of fleshing out the concrete details of Mingus' contribution to jazz after spending one's live loving his music. In the absence of this, seeing the man on film through a documentary such as "Charles Mingus: The Triumph of the Underdog," offers another opportunity for a music historian to see the man and listen to the tunes But how to contextually render that life in history' The text of Central Avenue Sounds offers perhaps the best literary compromiseit is a work of prose, but one that offers an oral history of jazz. Through weaving in the voices of different musicians, and different perspectives of the musicians of the Los Angels music scene' the book hopes to offer a fully-fleshed internal as well as external history of these artists. Charles Mingus was a critical influence upon many of these artists, as well as was influenced by those who preceded him. But the book is not only a triumph, to borrow the documentary's title, of prose. It is also ...