Chemistry meme Memes

The eternal tragedy of being a catalyst - you help others hook up but never get to join the fun. Our blue-shirted friend here is the perfect chemical wingman, speeding up reactions between reactants while remaining forever unchanged and uninvolved. He brings reactants together, watches them form a beautiful product (literally a wedding in this case), and then stares wistfully out the window contemplating his lonely catalytic existence. Chemistry's ultimate third wheel doesn't even get consumed in the process - just recycled for the next reaction. No wonder he looks depressed in that final panel. Catalytic converters have more exciting lives.

Ever notice how bases are basically proton-hungry stalkers? This meme perfectly captures the chemical desperation of a Brønsted-Lowry base spotting an innocent proton across the solution. In chemistry, Brønsted-Lowry bases are defined by their ability to accept protons (H+ ions), essentially making them proton-receivers. Meanwhile, acids are proton-donors. The meme shows the base creepily eyeing that sweet, sweet proton, ready to snatch it away with all the subtlety of a grad student spotting free food at a department seminar. Thirty years of teaching chemistry and I still chuckle at how we anthropomorphize molecular interactions. As if molecules have desires and motivations beyond their electron configurations. Yet here we are, pretending bases have stalker tendencies.

Corporate wants you to differentiate between chlorine gas (Cl₂) and iodine nitrogen dioxide (I₂NO₂)? Good luck with that! Both are horrifically pungent, eye-watering compounds that would send any chemist running for the emergency shower. Cl₂ is that lovely greenish gas used in chemical warfare during WWI, while I₂NO₂ is basically "spicy iodine" with extra steps. The joke is perfect because attempting to distinguish between two noxious chemicals by smell is both ridiculously dangerous and completely unnecessary when proper analytical techniques exist. It's like asking someone to taste-test different acids to identify them. No sane chemist would ever conduct a "sniff test" on these compounds unless they were gunning for a Darwin Award!