Scientists at CERN observe three "exotic" particles for first time

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Not crazy at all

I expect you see that with those who go into astro-chemistry because you really need to know all sides.

And when you wrote -

Physical chemistry for chemistry majors seems to be a really good course - which I regret never having taken.

I had 2 semesters of it.

I always laugh about how "taking chemistry" to the average high schooler is like how "taking PChem" is to the average college chem major - something that is dreaded. The labs were cool though. I don't recall any Physics majors taking that - it was something that we took around junior year and they probably had enough of their own requirements to do by then.

And yes - all of those physics concepts were fundamental to understanding chemistry and its underlying reactions. We also had to take 3 semesters of calculus, sitting there with math and physics majors as well as the EEs (I think differential/integral/multivariable). One of the good applications of calculus, particularly to PChem, was multivariable because you are looking at "volumes" and rotating stuff around multiple axes and that could be used for fluids and gasses.

At that point, I was 1 math course short of getting a math minor (would have needed a statistics course), but there was no way I was able to fit it in because the 1 credit labs were each 4 hours and those went along with the 3 credit lectures/discussions. So for like 1/2 of my 8 semesters, I was already "overloading" (more than 15 credits per semester) just to get it all in plus get the other core stuff in (English/writing, foreign language, social sciences, humanities).

By the time I got to my last 2 semesters, I was able to just take 12 credits both semesters my senior year and still graduate with 124 credits. I ended up doing 2, 6-credit research projects (did them in organo-metallic chemistry) and finished up some humanities courses and an Advanced Inorganic chem class.

I distinctly remember taking my very last final of college and when I came out of the auditorium, I stood on the corner outside of the lecture hall, hopped a campus shuttle to the movie theater near the school (this was UMASS/Amherst and the theater was at the Hampshire Mall) and saw "Return of the Jedi" on opening day with $5 in my pocket and bought a ticket that had recently gone up to $4.50.

My freshman class started with 100 chem majors and ended up 4 years later graduating 30, with half of those transfers and others who took 5 - 6 years to finish (where we only had 15 of the original 100 start and finish at the same time). And this was out of a university class of about 5000.