chem TEXTS

[VirVolMachina]

So, i started looking on bluelight a few months ago. I had never thought of posting until i visited this board, and found myself unable to understand any of the jargon commonly used. I realized that to really keep up with the "cutting edge" of a chemically-enhanced life, i need to educate myself.
So, my goal is to know enough to understand each topic on this board and be able to do the synths myself.
Right. So I am looking to self educate myself in the topic of chemistry, specifically organic chem. I will be starting college soon, but my major doesn't involve vary many chem courses, so i was wonder what texts would be the best to teach myself on the side? If you could recomend texts from basic chemistry to organic synth, that would be great.

So, great chemists out there, what books should i start reading?

 

[EvS]

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Chemistry/5-12Spring-2005/CourseHome/

 

[The_Idler]

out of interest, what are you studying?

 

[Ham-milton]

While this topic has been done to absolute death... I'll indulge you.

First: You're not going to do any of the synthetic stuff without a fairly massive expense on glassware, chemicals and neccessary equipment. If I were you, I'd drop any hopes of that right now. If you come up with or find someone elses baby that you really want to try, find an english speaking R/C vendor or a chinese made-to-order chemical house and talk to them about it. Don't construe that as advice for how to better break the law, it isn't (though I suppose it could be used that way). If you're going to be smart enough to teach yourself all of this, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding or coming up with unreported compounds with high potential that don't break the law or the analogue act.

My personal list of such things is getting quite long.

Second: With the above in mind, I would advise going through every freaking thread in ADD. It takes a while, but it's doable. I've done it (and I still go back and find interesting things!) and I think Bluelight should have a rule requiring everyone who wants to post in ADD to read all of those threads first.

Third: Wikipedia may not be the be-all and end all, but it's a really good starting point. Take some time to look up every term you can think of or come across you don't know for certain. Words are how we convey our thoughts, and in a field like chemistry and psychopharmacology, there's a tons and tons you can learn.

I have a list on my computer somewhere of all the words I didn't know and needed to look up (I built it up over 4 or 5 years now, actually). Putting together your own list would be best, but I could make it available to you.

Fourth: After you've got a good handle on the terminology, you should start looking at the fun stuff. Even if you don't know every term (God knows I don't!) you should start looking at various chems. It's useful to have a wide knowledge of the various structures. You'll start finding things in common among them.

If I were you (though I'm not, we obviously have similar interests, so this may be a worthwhile idea for you), I'd start reading whatever you can find about Structure Activity Relationships. Go deeper than just memorizing the 'morphine rule'- there's lots more.

I can provide you more resources if you can give us some more information about what you're looking for exactly for. What I mean is, what types of chemicals are you interested in? At Bluelight you'll find tons of information about Opiates and PEAs, Plenty about Tryptamines, less about tropanes, and not so much about depressants (Benzos excluded, I guess they're probably up by Tryptamines).

If you're interested in a particular class of more obscure compounds, though, Bluelight is definitely the place to be. It wasn't too long ago that I was looking for information about the SARs of Mytragynine and related compounds. I couldn't find a whole lot. Fortunately a very kind Bluelighter (who shall remain nameless!) was able to Email me a couple very useful journal articles as .pdfs that I didn't have access to.

 

[planckunit]

Organic Chemistry by Clayden, ... is a pretty cool textbook about organic chemistry.

 

[VirVolMachina]

this is going to be a long road.....

While this topic has been done to absolute death... I'll indulge you.
.

Thank you for the advice. I was wondering if you could send me the list of terms you needed to look up. I will also make my own list as i learn. How expensive would a synth setup be anyway? As you suggested, i will look through every thread in ADD. I am most interested in Tryptamines. Their reactions with MAOI's is what first led me to bluelight. Thanks again for the help.

thanks to the other people for the links, and to the guy who asked what im studying, in the spring semester im supposed to start studying Kinesiology although i'll probably wait and go for exercise science or education until i'm positively sure about what i want to do with the rest of my life.

 

[Obyron]

^^ It's like those super-trendy restaurants where there are no prices on the menus. If you have to ask how much it costs, you should probably eat somewhere else.

Do you plan to verify that you actually made what you intended to make? Go to eBay and look at prices for gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers. Look at prices for lab-grade glassware (something as simple as a separatory funnel with a stand can be over 100 dollars). Figure out the prices for precursor chemicals, assuming you can even find them from a source that won't land you on every government watch list known to man, regardless of what country you're in. Does your workspace have proper ventilation, including things like a fume hood? (You're not doing this in your house, are you?)

I looked it all over and decided that for the money involved it'd probably be easier just to follow ham-milton's advice and get a Chinese outfit to do a custom synth for me. Who wants to go in on some 2C-N? (Sarcasm, mods!)

 

[VirVolMachina]

^^ It's like those super-trendy restaurants where there are no prices on the menus. If you have to ask how much it costs, you should probably eat somewhere else.

Do you plan to verify that you actually made what you intended to make? Go to eBay and look at prices for gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers. Look at prices for lab-grade glassware (something as simple as a separatory funnel with a stand can be over 100 dollars). Figure out the prices for precursor chemicals, assuming you can even find them from a source that won't land you on every government watch list known to man, regardless of what country you're in. Does your workspace have proper ventilation, including things like a fume hood? (You're not doing this in your house, are you?)

I looked it all over and decided that for the money involved it'd probably be easier just to follow ham-milton's advice and get a Chinese outfit to do a custom synth for me. Who wants to go in on some 2C-N? (Sarcasm, mods!)

Theres no way in hell i'd be trying anything in my house. I'm not looking to break/blow-up anything. I also can't afford a mass spectrometer. I suppose i'd eventually have to rent a lab, or something would need to be worked out. Isn't it fine to have a chinese RC company synth you anything as long as its not scheduled here in the US?

 

[Acyl]

http://www.cem.msu.edu/~reusch/VirtualText/intro1.htm

 

[The_Idler]

nice, Ctrl-D

 

[Obyron]

Isn't it fine to have a chinese RC company synth you anything as long as its not scheduled here in the US?

Your order could potentially be seized by Customs, as has happened with a lot of folks' RC shipments. In most consumer cases this just results in you being sent what's called a Love Letter, where they basically tell you they've confiscated something along with why they confiscated it, and informing you that if you'd like to explain why you're ordering it they'll be glad to hear you out and consider returning it. For a gram of 2C-E or something you'd just write it off and take your lumps. However, if you're getting a custom synth you're talking about hundreds of grams, if not a kilogram of material, which means they might take slightly more interest in you than just sending a form letter. Remember that most RCs, while not being illegal de jure, are de facto illegal because of analog laws. It just depends on whether or not you have a way to get your order into the country in a way that will bypass a lot of attention from Customs, which I would think is the point where this discussion ceases to be academic and becomes something that's likely to get the thread locked.

To get back to the point of the thread, has anyone taken a serious look at something like the "...For Dummies" books as an intro primer to Organic Chemistry, to be followed, obviously, but checking out some real text books? It might be nice for folks to be able to get something simpler for 20 bucks before they consider spending more than that on text books.

The online coursework from MIT is fucking awesome. I've looked at their Organic Chem stuff in the past, and it's presented really well. There are a few missing slides, like stuff they've taken from text books, which they can't upload for legal reasons, but 99% of stuff is in there.

 

[VirVolMachina]

hm

When one majors in chem, how many math courses is one usually required to take? Sciences interest me, but i've always been very weak mathematically. What courses would i be expected to take, does it vary dramatically based on the school?

 

[It's a baby!]

You should do what I did: buy a high school chem textbook (if you've forgotten it like most people have), and just read and work through all the problems, starting with Chapter 1. Then go on to a college level textbook, and then to Organic Chem, etc. This is a great way to do things in my opinion, at least if you like learning from books like I do.

You should also get some basic lab manuals. You can find a lot on eMule, and they'll describe how to do things like fractional distillation, etc. etc., all of the basic techniques you'll need if your final goal is . . . er . . . a little more than just understanding things in *theory*

There are places you can order some chemicals from, basic chemicals anyway, including solvents. When you have to follow a lengthy synth to make 2C-B from anise oil, you don't want to be distilling paint thinner for your acetone, so these sites can make the whole process much easier.

Most of your precursors, especially organic precursors, will have to be homemade or stolen. You can't order trimethoxybenzaldehyde on eBay. Luckily many of these precursors can be made from other chemicals. That's the main part of the game. Glassware is easier, you can get it on various sites. It can get a little expensive though, best to check auction sites first. I think you can get away with ordering some chemicals from the Chinese, but I haven't tried it before. The whole thing could cost you around 1k or more depending on how extensive you want your experiments to be, whether you use a water aspirator or a real vacuum, etc.

 

[Ham-milton]

Your order could potentially be seized by Customs, as has happened with a lot of folks' RC shipments. In most consumer cases this just results in you being sent what's called a Love Letter, where they basically tell you they've confiscated something along with why they confiscated it, and informing you that if you'd like to explain why you're ordering it they'll be glad to hear you out and consider returning it. For a gram of 2C-E or something you'd just write it off and take your lumps. However, if you're getting a custom synth you're talking about hundreds of grams, if not a kilogram of material, which means they might take slightly more interest in you than just sending a form letter. Remember that most RCs, while not being illegal de jure, are de facto illegal because of analog laws. It just depends on whether or not you have a way to get your order into the country in a way that will bypass a lot of attention from Customs, which I would think is the point where this discussion ceases to be academic and becomes something that's likely to get the thread locked.

Customs has no authority to seize unscheduled compounds, even if they are analogues. You may get a visit from LEO shortly after delivery, at which time you ought to have a couple rats, a really good description of your experiment and everything else that's going to be asked.

 

[Acyl]

Customs has no authority to seize unscheduled compounds,

When does that ever stop them though?

You think theyre going to test a powder before they seize it? If its suspicious enough, they'll take it and tell you about it. You can always fight it, but its probably not worth it.

 

[Adrenochrome]

Geometry is a very important concept in organic chemistry. But It sounds really cool that you're thinking of switching your major to chemistry! Get over your mathphobia tho, there's no need to be afraid of math

 

[Ham-milton]

Customs has no authority to seize unscheduled compounds,

When does that ever stop them though?

You think theyre going to test a powder before they seize it? If its suspicious enough, they'll take it and tell you about it. You can always fight it, but its probably not worth it.

I figure as long as it's properly labelled, accompanied by MSDS and analytic data, that should satisfy them.

I doubt they'll seize anything properly labelled.

But without a documentation and labelling? THey're just gonna say "oh, cocaine... done." and send you a letter, I assume.

 

[kidamnesiac]

again, this has been done to death, but you should really consider a new way to get drugs if you think you're going to be able to make drugs after book learning in any less than 5 years (see eleusis)
its a beautiful subject, but making drugs is no reason to get into it, you will only be wasting time that could be spent doing something that you are truly intellectually interested in

 

[qwe]

So, i started looking on bluelight a few months ago. I had never thought of posting until i visited this board, and found myself unable to understand any of the jargon commonly used. I realized that to really keep up with the "cutting edge" of a chemically-enhanced life, i need to educate myself.
So, my goal is to know enough to understand each topic on this board and be able to do the synths myself.
Right. So I am looking to self educate myself in the topic of chemistry, specifically organic chem. I will be starting college soon, but my major doesn't involve vary many chem courses, so i was wonder what texts would be the best to teach myself on the side? If you could recomend texts from basic chemistry to organic synth, that would be great.

So, great chemists out there, what books should i start reading?

you want a general chemistry book, and an organic chemistry book.

it would be great if you could get into chem courses with labs to get experience working with synthesizing and analysis

look up your college's general chemistry course, and organic chemistry course (they should both be the two semester courses) and see what textbooks they use. then buy those yourself even though you arent taking those courses, i do this to learn about fields im not officially studying in school too

the general chemistry book will give you the chem background, and the organic chemistry book will give you what you need to synth and analyze, but you really need the general chem first. the latter builds upon the former

 

[qwe]

Geometry is a very important concept in organic chemistry. But It sounds really cool that you're thinking of switching your major to chemistry! Get over your mathphobia tho, there's no need to be afraid of math

understanding it is tricky, but seriously, math is how we think, how we see the world, and how the world operates. math is vital to any understanding, from psychology to sociology to economics to biology to chemistry and of course physics/astronomy.

math holds all our understanding together, even if we say 'i hate math' we still use it without realizing it