Michael O’Neill

@michaeloneill.org

1253 Followers 1312 Following

Inorganic Chemistry || University of Liverpool || Education || Blogging || Textbooks || www.michaeloneill.org || PERIODically Podcast supporter

Seagull on top of a sign to the library
Graphs of root ionisation energy for the 1s, 2s, and 3s electrons vs atomic number. The lines are all very straight.
Certificate awarding SFHEA to Michael O'Neill
There is a circular hole in a brick wall, through which can be seen a triangle with an angry face and a square who is sad. On the near side of the wall is a smiling circle with a speech bubble reading "if you want to make it through, just be yourself!"
Knights of the round table labelled "organic chemists", "inorganic chemists", and "analytical chemists". They lower their swords to the table, which is labelled "putting the sample in a huge magnet".
Cartoon comparison of good and bad sigma donor MO schemes
Magazine article Titled “Cambridge's new chemist curriculum: a catalyst for change”
Front cover of the book Wolf Hall.
A building with "Lennard-Jones" written over the entrance
In pink down the left of a page, a description of bulk magnetism going from a susceptibility curve to an expression for effective magnetic moment. In green down the right of the page, a description of atomic theory from the free ion model for 4f elements to the Lande expression for effective magnetic moment. In blue between the columns is written “compare experiment and theory”.
Some will get this far and ask why universities should be responsible for students making friends. Surely that’s not what academics signed up for – shouldn’t institutions focus on teaching and research rather than playing social coordinator? The problem is that Maslow’s hierarchy doesn’t work the way we’d like it to. Students who are lonely, anxious, and socially isolated aren’t engaging with the academic self-actualisation at the top of Maslow’s pyramid – they’re stuck further down, and no amount of excellent lecture content will shift them up.
Sign reading "the goal net was invented by Everton fan and civil engineer John Alexander Brodie. He was prompted into action by a wrongly disallowed goal that robbed his team of a victory against Accrington in 1889."
Etymology of quench, showing its old English antecedent acwencam (extinguish)
Hess cycles for MgO and MgO2.
A bar of soap which is red on one side and yellow on the other.
Graph showing decline in the number of courses for various STEM subjects, relative to 2020 levels. Chemistry drops the most rapidly, but overall decline is also seen in Biosciences, Physics, and General Sciences.
a mirror image of the earlier photo
What do you mean the atmosphere, you mean- . . . as in, when I visited it [Leeds] did seem quite kind of, as if they were constantly living in a Sunday afternoon where it was very kind of slow pace and [sighs] it just seemed quite miserable if I’m being honest
Morpheus from hit film The Matrix
Dog behind a face watching three dogs playing together. “Here’s the life I’ve always longed for”.
A view over some rooftops on a sunny day. Liverpool’s Liverpool Building is in the background.
Histogram showing a smooth increase in student mental health conditions being reported by students in England. The 2010 rate of about 1% rises to a 2022 rate of about 6%.
An annotated PowerPoint slide on oxidative addition to Vaska’s Complex
The front of Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral, a circular building made largely of concrete.
Google reviews for the Harold Cohen library in Liverpool reading “the staff are very nice and I love the silent study rooms whenever first years aren’t snogging”
Album artwork for Brat by Charlie xcx
Astronaut staring at Earth saying "wait, Schrock carbenes are just isolobal with oxide?". A second astronaut holds a gun pointed at the back of the first astronaut's head and says "always have been".
Sigma and pi bonding in carbonyl and ethene complexes
It is a MOUSE. In my ROOM.
Lecture slide on metal-ethene binding, with green post-it notes sketching out sigma bonding and pi back-bonding.
A paper form titled “quick feedback”. The first question is “are the lectures good enough? Yes/no” and the last question is “is there anything you wish your lecturers understood about what it’s like to study chemistry at Liverpool?”
Lecture slide reading “Chem214 Lecture 1: Atomic Trends”
Printout of a tweet by Sarah Lazarus. Did I “kill a plant” or did the plant not have what it takes to thrive in this fast-paced environment
OECD data on national tuition fee levels presented as a bar chart in dollars. England's annual fee of 13100 is the highest, with the US level of 9600 coming in second and Japan third at 5600.
A figure captioned "Map of Universities Teaching Chemistry in the UK". The map UK is in the top left corner and a cluster of dots is perhaps where India might be on a typical world map.
The Henderson hasselbalch equation linking pH to pKa and the concentration of acid and conjugate base in solution
A captcha with "select all squares with metals" and the section of the p-block which contains semimetals.
A theatre filling up for Matt Murphy’s inaugural lecture
Ad for the new iPad mini. An example of the capabilities shows someone making notes on how to name binary compounds.
A cyanotype, in its characteristic blue tint, showing a woman with wing-like sleeves. Each sleeve is as wide as her torso.
A lecture slide titled "iron and empire" with an excerpt from a Kipling poem. Gold is for the mistress - silver for the maid" - Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade!" "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron - Cold Iron - is master of them all.”
Ionisation energies against atomic number for various elements which commonly adopt the +3 state.
A two-tone soap with a yellow-red colour gradient
plot of undergraduate vs postgraduate student numbers in UK Chemistry departments 22-23
PowerPoint title slide reading "spin and spinels"
Album art for Kesha’s “gag order”.
A well-loved Casio fx-85ES calculator on a desk.
Screenshot of an email folder reading “Nothing in SFHEA Evidence”
Cover of Capitalism & Disability by Russell
Tutorial notes on the electronic properties of solids
Radial distribution functions for the valence 4f electrons and core 5p electrons of the lanthanides.