sanderson-related chemistry problems

[king of nowhere]

A few weeks ago I got a new job as high school teacher of chemistry, and I would love to insert some sanderson-inspired problems in my lessons.

Problem is, I can't think of any.

There are a plethora of physical problems - especially dealing with gravitation for the roshar system, again gravitation for scadrial moved in orbit, even irradiation on scadrial when going from one orbit to the other - but very little concerning basic chemistry.

I could maybe use the rosharan atmosphere for some gas-phase reaction - like "earth's atmosphere is 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen, and it contains X nitrogen oxide, at equilibrium. the imaginary planet roshar has the same atmospheric pressure, but it has 35% oxygen and 64% nitrogen; calculate the pressure of nitrogen oxide in roshar's atmosphere".

the way I see it, allomancy is pretty much out of the question; putting aside that metals and metal alloys are not in most high school programs, mostly because a chemical description of transition metals and their alloys is too complicated, if I ask a question about metals and composition then bringing in additional informations about allomancy would require long explanations, which would be distracting and, for anyone who's not a sanderfan, lame. Most importantly, it is still a lesson, I'm not going to turn it into prolonged fantassy discussions.

Ideally I should just drop a name into an otherwise perfectly normal problem.

Does anyone have some ideas of some such problems?

[Mestiv]

@Chaos created some math problems that are Cosmere related, maybe he'll be able to give you some inspiration

[king of nowhere]

I know about chaos, but that was math. It's easier to make problems with math because math is everywhere. On the other hand, rarely sanderson books get into chemical details.

[Merrickz]

Make them work out the molecular masses of the Mistborn metals like steel or duralumin

Moles were a pain when I was taking High School Chemistry so it may be good practice

 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

you could do a problem that deals with the elements like potassium, sodium, cesium, and Harmonium that generate exothermic reactions with water...

Maybe more of a biology problem, but Sandmastery's use of Water as a focus and the resulting dehydration... 

Something related to Soulforging... i.e. "if you could apply a stamp to something that converted it from one element to another, what would the energy input required or released in that transformation to add the necessary protons/neutrons/electrons or remove them?"

 

[Pagerunner]

I have a chemical engineering degree; I can barely remember what level of chemistry is appropriate for high schoolers. My first thought was mass spectrometry to identify a mysterious alloy, but that's definitely way above what these kids are doing. What are some of the more specific topics you're looking for?

Ideal gas law is a thing; you could fit soulcasting into that. (If you could convert 1 kg of stone into 1 kg of air, how much volume would it take up at normal atmospheric conditions?) I don't know how much you get into reaction rates, but you could view the consumption of dye during Awakening as reaction and do stuff with the concentration of dye molecules.

But I would definitely hesitate to use atium or harmonium or some other made-up element. A big part of chemistry is learning about and memorizing the behavior of specific elements. While harmonium is an alkali metal, it would do your students a disservice to replace a real sodium or potassium in an example.