Flame On!--reigniting passion for chemistry

Hi! I’m Dr. Biedenweg and I have taught Chemistry and Physics for 37 years in Palos Verdes and Manhattan Beach, California.

During my career I have worked tirelessly to bring chemistry to life for my students-to have them experience the feelings I had as a child when I stood transfixed by the cartoon chemist with his bubbling test tubes and frothing beakers mixing up a dazzling concoction ….. And the imaginative possibilities of chemistry tingled up my spine and danced through my mind.

Those moments have never left me, the power of chemistry to wow and amaze has held me enchanted through the ups and mostly downs of all my high school and college chemistry courses, and through 37 amazing years of teaching high school physics and chemistry.

And now I have a chance to share this joy with you—

My dream is to write a series of chemistry books that capture the excitement I felt as a child. In these books I want to show how the fundamentals can be used to do amazing things- invent, problem solve, and create things of wonder, amazement, and beauty. These aren’t classroom books, of necessity they are a bit more edgy than that—they are books written specifically to fulfill my longing to know and use the hidden secrets of chemistry.

In these books you will learn i) how chemical fundamentals matter-they help you solve real problems and create better working devices; ii) how to use chemicals safely to create magical effects and design cool toys and projects. The age range for use is 14 and up.

Here's the exciting part—book 1-Flame On!-The Chemistry of Oxidizers-- is near completion!

The text of the book is 95% finished and all the activities and projects have been thoroughly tested.

This book is the culmination of 1000s of hours of work! Every single experiment and project has been done by me (and sometimes my students) lots and lots of times. In many of the projects I have run dozens of experiments playing with chemical variables in an attempt to optimize performance outcomes! They all work well! The explanations presented are not gleaned from the Internet-they come from either professional publications or direct discussion with professionals in the field so they are as accurate and simple to understand as I can make them.

So where do YOU come in?

Here’s the thing: To finish the book, I need your help. I cannot do this without your financial support! There are over 800 drawings to be done (about 40 per chapter) and they require money to continue to pay my illustrators. The book then requires a layout artist to work with me in InDesign, and additional funding so the book can be completed, printed, and published--it's a big book--when completed it will be a 500-600 page hardcover!

So if you are like me and you’ve always longed for a set of chemistry books that will have you-

i) Engaged in the marvels and beauty of chemistry from page 1 onward

ii) Using chemicals to investigate and create interesting, imaginative, and inventive outcomes

iii) Mastering fundamentals and putting them to use to improve experimental outcomes and create better working projects

iv) Working with most of the principles in a first year college chemistry course

v) Thinking about safety always before you begin to work with any chemical combination

This is your chance to fund an amazing and needed project run by a person (me) with a proven track record of delivering on creative promises (I have published an illustrated book with a kit-The Electric Carnival—that teaches a beginner how to invent cool games and projects using simple electronics--check out the book and kit at theelectriccarnival.com; be sure to look at the Powerpoint to see how a book created by me is laid out and illustrated).

If you are curious about what topics/activities are covered in Flame On!-The Chemistry of Oxidizers, you can contact me through GoFundMe and I will provide you with an outline. Also if you would like to see the type of artwork being done for the book--it begins with a 25 page comic book of adventures from my life--I can provide you with samples.