[Tutor] Program to Predict Chemical Properties and Reactions

[Emile van Sebille]

On 7/16/2011 9:24 AM B G said...
> I was just wondering how feasible it would be to build something like
> the following:
>
> Brief background, in chemistry, the ionization energy is defined as the
> energy required to remove an electron from an atom. The ionization
> energies of different elements follow general trends (ie moving left to
> right across the periodic table, the ionization energy increases; moving
> down a group the ionization energy decreases).
>
> What if I wanted something such that we could type in a few elements and
> the program would list the elements in order of increasing ionization
> energy (for, say, the first ionization energy).  Any suggestions for
> going about this?

Build a dictionary of elements and ionization energies.  Then it's 
simply a matter of looking up the entered elements related values, 
sorting, and displaying.

> I'm trying to brush up on my chemistry and thought
> the funnest way to do it would be to build a program that can do this
> (if it works, I'd also like to replicate it for level of
> electronegativity, atomic radius size, electron affinity, and ionization
> levels 2, 3, and 4).

Extend the dictionary for the additional attributes.

Emile


> I have a good idea of pseudocode that could make
> this happen in terms of the rules of chemistry, but having some trouble
> visualizing the actual implementation.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
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