Helpful Animation Explains The Everyday Chemistry All Around Us

image via youtube screenshot

It’s not that I didn’t care about my high school chemistry classes. It’s just that, after spending the first few weeks of the semester trying to wrap my brain around the molar weight of Schrödinger's cat, I realized that no matter how many times I looked at the periodic table of elements, it was never not going to resemble a chess board from hell. Call me “defeatist” – I prefer to think of myself as having embraced the fact that discretion is often better part of valor. And, in this instance, I decided to discretely transfer into a different class to earn my science credit.

That’s why videos like this one, from TED’s TED-Ed educational series, are perfect for someone like me: Short, sweet, and a charmingly animated reminder that just because I wasn’t the best high school chem student doesn’t mean it’s too late to learn a bit about the chemical reactions happening all around us, every day.

Just something to keep in mind the next time you build a campfire, bake a cake, or try to make a pyramid out of golf balls.