PV = nRT!

Boy. I'm making slow progress on things, today. It's just one of those days. There's a job posting for a teaching position at South Puget Sound Community College, which is in Olympia, Washington. Olympia is a great town, in a great location. As I ponder this option, I wonder to myself, "Would I be happy teaching full-time? What about that call to leadership?" Such a job would certainly give me time and mental space to pursue my many other interests, like riding my bike, rowing, ceramics, knitting, gardening, et cetera. But would I get bored after a few years? The niggling doubt worries me. At the same time, I have a hard time dealing with uncertainty. Argh.

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In other news, I had an "Oh, duh." moment last night. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been trying to track down energetic equivalents. Thing is, I've been doing this for a question where I don't need to bother with such details (thank goodness!). I've measured carbon dioxide production, and I know the carbon content of the materials that colonies are using. So I should be able to relate carbon to carbon; after all, that's what stoichiometry is all about! Much simpler than looking up or trying to measure energetic equivalents.

But then I had to think about how to convert between a volume of carbon dioxide and the percentage of dry mass composed of carbon. Oh yeah. That brought me back to Physical Chemistry, a class I took for "fun." Because, that's right, I can just use that classic equation PV = nRT to figure out how many moles of carbon I measured.

...with only one slight caveat. I don't know the operating temperature, offhand. I have to go back in to school to check it. Oh well.