Reaction failure Memes

The organic chemistry student's journey in six painful panels! You start with such hope - all that fancy glassware, pristine reagents, and carefully written synthesis plans. Then reality strikes! Hours of meticulous work only to discover your beautiful reaction has transformed into a mysterious black goop that defies identification. That moment when you realize your precious compound has "tarred" is the chemical equivalent of watching your dreams dissolve faster than sodium in water. Every chemistry student has experienced that soul-crushing moment of staring at their flask thinking, "I've created... nothing useful." The progression from scientific optimism to lying on the floor questioning your life choices is basically Organic Chemistry 101! The truest test isn't understanding reaction mechanisms - it's maintaining your will to live when your synthesis turns to sludge for the fifth time this week!

When your NMR spectrum transforms from complex data into a middle finger through Fourier Transform. Nothing says "failed reaction" quite like your analytical equipment literally flipping you off. Spent 12 hours synthesizing what turned out to be absolutely nothing except disappointment with spectroscopic proof. Happens so often in my lab that we've started naming our failed compounds after Greek tragedies.

Behold the escalating brilliance of chemist brain activation! Starting with the pathetic "compound is unreactive" (yawn), we progress through increasingly sophisticated excuses until—ZAP!—the final form: "positive Gibbs free energy"! It's the ultimate chemistry flex! Instead of admitting your reaction failed, just declare it "thermodynamically unfavorable" with scientific pizzazz! Nothing says "I'm a chemistry genius" like blaming the fundamental laws of the universe for your experimental flop. The more syllables in your excuse, the more lab coat credibility you gain!