M Slattery's Online Journal

Task 1: Working out calculations

Step 1: We need to work out the required concentration of the unknown HCl (Hydrochloric Acid). The values given to us are that we need 100ml of 0.05mol HCl.

Step 2: Convert ml to dm^3 100ml = 0.1dm^3

Step 3: Using the fomula c = n/v   c=0.05/0.1

∴ c = 0.5mol/dm^3 of HCl

Task 2: Writing out the equation and balancing

Hydrochloric acid + Sodium Hydroxide —> Sodium Chloride + Water

HCl + NaOH —> NaCl + H2O

This is a neutralisation reaction. The equation is already balanced so there is no need to do so. This also suggests that the mol ratios are all going to be the same at 1.

Task 3: Making a standard solution

To make the standard solution, the sodium hydroxide pellets should be put into a beaker.

When it comes to titrations, we need to titrate an alkali of a certain concentration (from the burette into a beaker which holds the unknown acid). To do so, we must put the alkali in the burette.

Method:

1. Pour acid into the burette until the meniscus of the fluid is at exactly 50cm^3 to a degree of ±0.1cm^3.

2. Pour the alkali of unknown concentration and 3 drops of phenolphthalein to the conical flask.

3. Slowly turn the tap to drip the hydrochloric acid into the conical flask whilst stirring the flask every drip to ensure the neutralisation occurs properly.

4. Continue until the solution is at a point where it is not a full pink colour but clear to an extent.

Equipment List:

Burette (50cm^3)

Sodium Hydroxide Pellets

Hydrochloric Acid

Phenolphthalein (Indicator)

Beaker x3

Conical Flask

Plastic Pipette

Pipette

Pipette Filler

Boss

Clamp

White Tile

Funnel

Risk Assessment:

1. Ensure that the tap is always closed when you are not using the burette as it may spill out and increase the overall uncertainty of the experiment.

2. Move any obstacles that may be hazards out of the way such as chairs so that if any chemicals spill, it is easy to manoeuvre.

3. Keep chemicals away from the edge of tables to prevent then from spilling.

4. Wear safety goggles to protect the eyes

5. Adding water to sodium hydroxide pellets is an exothermic reaction. Due to this, a lot of thermal energy is released so once the water is poured in to the beaker, everyone must be a safe distance away in case the beaker spills as it may cause severe burns.

http://mscritchleyslab.teacher.edutronic.net/2016/11/29/concentrate-year-12-chemistry/

http://www.creative-chemistry.org.uk/alevel/module1/documents/N-ch1-49.pdf

Focusing on the title of the play, ‘The Crucible’ means a situation with severe trial which leads to a major change. In the play, many people from Salem are accused of being involved with witchcraft which led to a court case involving almost everyone. In the end, it changed the whole community of the town as lots of people were killed and the rest were still skeptical. This suggests that the title of the play is directly linked to the content within it.

This is evident in Act One where Rebecca Nurse speaks of Hale and how it is unecessary to bring in an external party to sort out a situation. This was the start of the conflict and led all the characters into the court cases.

Rebecca Nurse said ‘we should look to ourselves’ and ‘I do fear it’ as another character, Hale, is introduced. The first phrase suggests that the people should sort the situation out themselves rather than bringing in an external party as the phrase does say that the people of Salem should ‘look to themselves’. The ‘I fear it’ presents Hale as a character who would ruin the peace and life of people in Salem. This is shown with the emotion which Rebecca Nurse says the phrase with (which is fear). I believe that this is not a fear of Hale himself but of the actions he will take to try to sort out the situation.

The play is set in Salem, Massachusetts. The town is very religious and the majority of people are Puritans (due to the time at which the play is set). In the events of Act One, the women of the town are reported to have danced in the forest with the black slave, Tituba by Parris (whom is a reverend). After he saw them dancing, his daughter Betty became ill and fell into a coma. He then begins to question his niece, Abigail, whom was seen with the other girls dancing in the forest. However, Abigail tries to convince Parris that they were merely dancing and were not doing witchcraft. The Putnams then enter the room whom tend to hold grudges. ‘Goody Putnam’ (wife of Thomas Putnam) reveals that every child they had tried to have, always died at birth and they believed it to be due to witchcraft. The Putnams then try to convince Parris to declare that there is witchcraft in the town.

Love and hate are uncontrollable forces used in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ and Browning’s poems (The Laboratory-Ancien Régime, Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister and Porphyria’s Lover). These emotions are manipulated through the use of figurative and language devices. Love is the emotion used to describe a positive affection or attraction to something whereas hate is usually considered to be the opposite. At least that is what we believe them to be as they are man-made devices used to describe certain emotions we feel as human beings. Nonetheless, I consider hate to be a product of love and that they are both spontaneous and cause people to think irrationally. I will explore Shakespeare’s and Browning’s pieces to present this and link them together.

In ‘Julius Caesar’, there are many depictions of love but I think it is best shown in Act 3 Scene 2 where Brutus makes a speech to the Roman people at Caesar’s funeral and says “not that I loved Caesar less but that I loved Rome more”. This scene shows love because Brutus killed his own friend for the love of his country as he was tricked, by the conspirators, into believing that Caesar would become a tyrant, disrupt the peace in Rome and enslave the people if he came to more power. Later in his speech, Brutus says “I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death”. This suggests that Brutus’ love for his country was more than any other positive relationship he had with other characters as he was willing to give his life for his country once the time came. This shows that love causes people to think illogically because Brutus was convinced that the only way to save his country was to kill another person. However, it is argued that it was not that Brutus loved Caesar but that he loved Cassius and he only said that he loved Rome to cover his tracks and also possibly to calm the Roman people. In either situation, irrationality is implied because Brutus killed a person regardless if it was for Rome or for the conspiracy.

Love is also presented in Browning’s poem ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ in lines 33-35 when the protagonist of the poem says “Porphyria worshipped me; surprise made my heart swell, and still it grew while I debated what to do”. This extract suggests that Porphyria loved him to a point where she was following him religiously and he was so gratified by her affection that his heart was ‘filling’ with love. The description of his heart swelling is a metaphor because the heart does not actually expand as love is a figurative device used to describe an emotion and therefore cannot physically change something. The quotation also shows that the main character did not know what to do as his love grew for Porphyria and from this, I can relate this to my point of love being a spontaneous and uncontrollable emotion. In this case, love appears to have an effect on people which prevents them from thinking in a rational manner. This is proven as a few lines later, the main character became so irrational that he grabbed hold of Porphyria’s hair and “wound three times her little throat around and strangled her”. This suggests that he killed Porphyria but why would he have to kill her if he was in love with her? I think he committed murder to preserve the moment that they were having; As she “worshipped” him, he never wanted Porphyria to stop loving him and by killing her, the moment would never be lost and she would love him for evermore.

Hate is shown in Act 1 Scene 1 of ‘Julius Caesar’ when Cassius tells Brutus of a time when Caesar was drowning in the Tiber and Cassius saved him. He also then mentions how Caesar ‘is now become a god, and Cassius is a wretched creature and must bend his body if Caesar carelessly but nod on him’. This presents hatred because Cassius rescued Caesar and saved his life when they were swimming in the Tiber but he was never given any recognition in return for his kind actions and this made Cassius feel as though Caesar owed him something. Furthermore, Caesar was treated as a god by the people and Cassius could not comprehend how he was so great as he “did mark how he did shake” when Caesar became ill just like any ordinary person. The idea of Caesar being a god is a metaphor as the people of Rome worshipped him in a manner which was almost parallel to the respect for the Roman gods. In this scene, hate is depicted as a passion for disliking someone as Cassius despises Caesar. The main cause for this being the unrequited love in which Cassius is given; there is a lack of love and this has led to his hatred for him. Cassius’ hatred shows irrational behaviour because shortly after this conversation with Brutus, he threw messages into Brutus’ window to convince him to join the conspiracy. This shows how immoral Cassius was being as he would even use his friend to get revenge on Caesar.

Hate is also used in Robert Browning’s ‘Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister’. In the beginning of the poem, the protagonist says “If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God’s blood, would not mine kill you!”. This extract suggests hate because the character uses the Lord’s name in vain. In a usual context, using the Lord’s name in a sentence is typically used to portray a shock to a person. However, in this situation, the Lord’s name is used in vain by a monk, a religious man who usually preaches and/or believes in God and by using the name in such a manner, it would be considered a sin. This shows that the main character’s hatred for Brother Lawrence is quite explicit and outgoing as he is even willing to use such language in spite of his religious background. Furthermore, The quotation also suggests that the main character loathes Lawrence to an extent where he would be willing to kill him but this is very strange behaviour as murdering a person would also be considered to be a sin. But what is the motivation or drive for the main character to want to kill Lawrence? I believe it to be jealousy as shown in the second stanza. “At the meal we sit together: salve tibi! I must hear”. This is a portrayal of hatred as the “salve tibi!” is meant to some form of mockery of Brother Lawrence’s formal manner in which he may speak but it cannot be concluded as Lawrence does not actually have any speech throughout the piece. Regardless of this, it shows jealousy as the main character may envy the respect given by the other monks.

Love and hate are both shown in Act 3 Scene 2 of ‘Julius Caesar’ during Mark Anthony’s speech to the people of Rome at Caesar’s funeral (just shortly after Brutus’ ‘love for Rome’ speech). In this scene, he says that he has come “to bury Caesar, not to praise him”. This shows Anthony’s love for Caesar as he is mourning for him. This is a different kind of love compared to the poem and scene aforementioned as this is reminiscing or remembering a person. Hate is also presented within the same speech through Anthony’s repetitive use of ‘honourable’ as it can be inferred as a sarcastic comment to mock the conspirators . Moreover, hatred is shown in the scene when Anthony uses ‘Caesar’s will’ to convert the people to his side and to oppose the conspirators. This is a portrayal of hate as Mark Anthony went out of his own way to either retrieve Caesar’s will or to fake it just to manipulate the people. Money from Caesar’s supposed will is also used to turn the people against the conspirators. “To every several man, seventy-five drachma”. This was a tactic implemented by Anthony with intention to bankrupt the conspirators whom had recently gained power.

The two themes are also presented in ‘The Laboratory-Ancien Régime’. Hate is more explicitly shown in this poem as the protagonist is assisted by a chemist or apothecary to create a poison to kill the woman whom her lover is seeing behind her back. “He is with her, and they know that I know where they are, what they do”. This quotation suggests hate as the protagonist and both her lover and mistress are apparently aware of her knowledge. However, another interpretation is that the protagonist is paranoid and only believes this as she is being influenced by her hatred. Love is less explicitly shown in the poem because it is hidden beneath the hate. Overall, the protagonist still has feelings of love for her other half but as she knows of another woman, she experiences jealousy which eventually leads to her hatred. “Say no! To that pulse’s magnificent come-and-go”. The pulse is a metaphor for the beating of heart as it is described by the ‘come-and-go’. The hyphens used between the words create a rhythm which resemble the quickness of the beating of the heart. The reason for this may be due to Browning being alive around the 1800s when women were believed to act upon their emotions and suggests why the poem may have been inspired by this.

Love and hate are shown as uncontrollable and spontaneous forces in ‘Julius Caesar’ and Browning’s poems because they show how irrational people become when they are under the influence of one or even both of the emotions. The first example being love when Brutus was trying to justify his barbaric actions. In the first poem, love is also presented as an emotion which causes people to think irrationally as the main character kills Porphyria to prevent her from not loving him. Both of these extracts include a death of another character to present love. This suggests how both Shakespeare and Browning were using love to portray an irrational action to either add effect and manipulate or change the story. Hate is also used in a similar manner across the pieces of literature as they include jealousy and envy. In ‘Julius Caesar’, Cassius is jealous of Caesar because of his success and the main character of Browning’s poem is jealous of Brother Lawrence as he is respected by the other monks. In all the extracts, love and hate is presented as forces which cannot be controlled and have stopped the rational motives and thoughts of the individuals.

Almost 8 years ago a journalist, John Humphrys, wrote a newspaper article ranting about our language changing due to technology. The headline of this piece was named ‘I h8 txt msgs’ and was meant to mock and criticise the manner in which people use language in text messages. But a lot has changed in 8 years.

Since the article was written, various generations of smartphones have been introduced, social norms have changed and of course, our language has changed too. In 2007, people were still using phones with physical keyboards to text each other. During this time it was considered acceptable to use abbreviation in text messages as it would take multiple key presses on certain keys to type letters. In that sense, it made the use of abbreviations plausible as they would actually save people time whilst texting. However, due to the introduction of the first iPhone, the qwerty keyboard tends to be more generic and it also changed the way that people text.

This keyboard is very similar to those found in laptops and computers and allowed people to type in a more formal manner. Due to people not having to press keys in quick succession to get the result they wished for, the need for abbreviated words or phrases like ‘h8r’ (hater) or ‘brb’ (be right back) were no longer required. However, some of the abbreviations stuck and some are still used today. For example, ‘lol’ (laugh out loud) is still commonly used to express laughter.

If language is the very thing that is changing, perhaps the people who are trying to hold on to the ‘old’ language are afraid of change. These critics or ‘pedants’, as Stephen Fry calls them in his own article, are clinging onto the formality of the ‘correct’ use of language. However, there is no correct use of language, of course punctuation has specific uses and functions in order to make words come together to make ‘correct’ sentences but no particular person has actual ruled that abbreviations cannot be used in language.

Personally, I believe that it depends on the context in which you are contacting people. If you were texting a close friend, the context of the message would be much more informal so the use of ‘lol’ and ‘omw’ would be much more common. Whereas a personal statement to a Sixth Form would be much more formal.

In Humphry’s article, he mentions how the Oxford English Dictionary has ‘removed the hyphen from no fewer than 16,000 words’ and how he feels ‘betrayed by my precious OED (Oxford English Dictionary)’. To be honest, everyone likes the dictionary; it has all the vocabulary you could ever need and it is so simple and useful. But does removing a hyphen make the use of language so much more difficult? No, no it does not. This is because a hyphen is only one character and it is not a major attribute to the word; the hyphen was used to link two words together to combine their meanings. For example,

Love and hate is presented in Julius Caesar through Brutus’ death in Act 5 Scene 5. In the scene, Antony says ‘this was the noblest Roman of them all’. The ‘Roman’ being Brutus, whom ran upon his sword. This shows love and hate because the whole war between Brutus and Mark Antony was due to the hatred they felt for one another when Caesar died. However, the scene also shows love as Antony respects Brutus by calling him the ‘bravest’. This is not entirely love but more mutual respect.

In all of the poems, love and hate is shown in different ways.

In the ‘Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister’, the speaker says ‘Gr-r-r’ on the first line. This suggests that the speaker may be annoyed with someone or something. In the same stanza there are morbid thoughts as the speaker mentions killing someone. They also say ‘He’ll dry you up with its flames’. From this, I can infer that the speaker is somewhat condemning the person they are speaking to to Hell. Love is shown in the poem as the second stanza begins with ‘At the meal we sit together’. This quotation suggests that there is family or some sort of mutual love as there is a meal where everyone is seated.

In the poem ‘A Woman’s Last Word’, love is shown in the first stanza as the speaker says ‘Let’s contend no more. Love’. This suggests a theme of love as the speaker is saying not to fight anymore but to embrace the emotions.

Capitalism. One of the social systems which contributed to the conflict during the Cold War. It allows people to privately own businesses, possessions and land. People living under a capitalist government have much more freedom as they have free speech and they are also allowed to vote. In the capitalist system, it has classes for the people: the higher class (capitalist class) tends to be a minority of people whom are owners of businesses and make a lot more money, whereas the working class usually has to trade their skills and ability to work for a salary. Furthermore, the working class people are the ones who work to produce the goods in which the capitalist class then use to make a profit. In the system, you get people of different classes based on their wealth and in that sense, capitalism is unfair.

Communism is the other social system which contributed to the conflict in the Cold War. It follows an concept where everything is owned and controlled by the state. Due to this there is much less freedom in the startup stage of Communism but in the ideal Communist state, there doesn’t need to be a state as everyone would be equal and would follow the law. As everything is equal in Communism, there is no way to gain profit as all the money is given back to the people thus taking away the class system found in capitalism. However, there is no way that the ideal Communist state can be created which means that the startup creates that sense of no freedom for the people as they do not have free speech, they cannot be materialistic and they cannot vote for a different party to run the country in a different way.

Morning of summer solstice. The sky stares at the ground with bright blue eyes, redwings sing songs in the trees and the breeze softly rustles the greenery. As the flowers, trees and bushes are gently awakened by the wind, a sweet aroma disperses into the air. In the distance, a steady rattle of wheels clattering against tracks can be heard as a train makes its daily commute; the clash of metal on metal resonates through the waking town and up the swerving mountain pass.

Rays of light pierce through the branches of the overhanging trees upon the old path, revealing its imperfections. The tarmac road is a barren battlefield in an everlasting war between nature and machine. At the edges of the blacktop, a slight dampness resides as the sun cannot encompass it with its generous light and warmth.

A musty odour lingers in the air as a ‘Championship White’ ’92 Honda NSX passes by. Its tyres flick up the water on the side of the road and into the sky. For a split second, the droplets hang in the air. All is silent. Then the rumble of the engine breaks the peace and the earth’s gravity decides the droplets’ fate like a Roman emperor.

As the car manoeuvres through the sweeping hairpins and chicanes, the occasional flicker of sunlight reflects off of its flawless aluminium body. It is a graceful swan gliding on a black river. Miniscule hints of petrol, barely noticeable, linger in the air as the twin exhausts warm the darkness beneath the overhanging trees. The swan then disappears into the pass, not to be seen until the light of the sun no longer shines upon the earth.

Night of summer solstice. No longer are the eyes of the sky blue but a jet black with a slight glimmer from the occasional starlight; no longer do the redwings sing but the insects chirp and the breeze no longer soft, but a heavy buffet. The whole town is asleep. But if you listen carefully, a throaty roar can be heard in the mountains as a beast awakens in the distance.

The grace of the swan that once travelled on the path now replaced by a fiend. Its true self unbound by the chains restricting it in the day. For now, it roams freely but its liberty is limited by time.

The loud rumble of the engine shakes the ground. All six cylinders run at their maximum potential with no mistake to be made, the clutch engages with the flywheel at every shift keeping the transmission in time with the engine, the popping of the exhausts as unburnt petrol lands on the scorching pipes and the screech of rubber as the tyres struggle to find traction; a mechanical masterpiece boundless by the law in the night.

If you watch the swan pass by, at first you can see the kind white eyes illuminating the darkness covering the pass. Then, as it slows down and turns into the chicane, you can hear its downshifts and the screaming of the tyres once again. Watch it slide, showing its elegance and prowess simultaneously. But as the eyes become red, its personality changes and once again, the noise of the engine spreads out into the surroundings.

Now all that can be heard is its beastly growl echoing through the mountain pass as it disappears into the night; not to be seen until dawn.