The Great Chemistry Math Betrayal

The meme features a physics exam question asking "In an atom, the number of electrons is equal to:" with three options. Someone selected "the number of electrons" (a tautology) instead of "the number of protons" (the correct answer). Below is Emperor Kuzco from "The Emperor's New Groove" saying "No, no. He's got a point." It's technically true in the most useless way possible! The number of electrons is equal to the number of electrons—just like saying water is wet. The teacher gave it 1 point because, well, you can't argue with that flawless circular logic. Chemistry teachers everywhere are simultaneously facepalming and reaching for their red pens.

That moment when you realize your mom is a crystallographer with anger issues! The poor geometric shape is experiencing the universal dread that comes when your full name echoes through the house. Except instead of "John Michael Smith," this unfortunate polyhedron gets called "Pentahexagonal Pyritoheptacontatetrahedron!" Mathematicians and chemists everywhere are having flashbacks to being caught drawing molecular structures on the living room wall. Even complex geometric structures aren't immune to maternal wrath!

When ATP synthase brags about pumping hydrogen ions into the matrix while Complex I, III, and IV do all the actual work establishing the proton gradient. Cellular respiration politics at its finest. Those complexes have been carrying the mitochondrial electron transport chain since 1967, and ATP synthase gets all the credit in textbooks. The audacity.

This textbook is basically saying "when your number is so massive it's stopped caring about small-time additions." Avogadro's number (10 23 ) is so ridiculously huge that adding 23 to it is like throwing a grain of sand into the Grand Canyon and expecting the tour guide to update the brochure. And then there's the "very large numbers" that are so astronomically gigantic they don't even notice when you multiply them by mere billions upon billions. It's the numerical equivalent of a celebrity too famous to acknowledge your existence. These numbers have transcended mathematical anxiety - they're just out there living their best life, completely unbothered by our operations. The footnote about "keeping track of leftover factors" is the textbook equivalent of a nervous laugh after making a dad joke at a faculty meeting.

The perfect visual representation of carbon-carbon bonds! The top fence (alkane) shows a single rail—just like those boring single bonds between carbon atoms. The middle fence (alkene) has two rails, representing the double bond that makes organic chemistry slightly more interesting. And the bottom fence (alkyne) flaunts three rails, just like the triple bond that makes chemists go "ooooh." Chemistry professors probably have this printed and framed in their offices right next to their periodic table shower curtains.

Behold! The most brilliant collision of chemistry and the internet ever conceived! This magnificent creation replaces chemical elements with their corresponding country code domains. Need to visit France? Just click on .fr (Francium)! Want to browse Russian websites? Head to .ru (Ruthenium)! It's the only periodic table where you can simultaneously learn chemistry AND plan your international web surfing adventure. The greyed-out elements represent the poor souls with no matching country codes—they're the digital nomads of the periodic table, forever homeless in the world wide web. Chemistry teachers everywhere are either crying or bookmarking this for their next lesson!