As Romeo walked to his early morning class, his stomach twisted with worry about chemistry. Later in the day, his chemistry teacher would lecture about energy units, a subject that Romeo had never understood because his high school chemistry teacher was also the unknowledgeable baseball coach. He was extremely anxious that his ignorance would keep him from making a good grade.
That afternoon, Romeo frantically Googled all that he could learn about energy units. "The two units of energy are the calorie and the joule. One calorie equals 4.184 joules. One joule equals one kilogram m2/s2. The joule is so small that we typically use the kilojoule. A calorie in chemistry is actually the same calorie printed on food packages," he read from a website.
Romeo then attempted a few problems involving the heat absorbed when water is heated to a specific temperature, which…show more content… For today's homework, you will be computing the heat absorbed when water changes temperature."
Romeo wrote down the problems that his professor assigned from his chemistry textbook. He made sure to copy the formula: Q = mc∆T. The problems asked how many joules were required to melt lead, and the specific heat capacity of lead.
Later, Romeo worked out the chemistry problems while glancing at the examples he wrote in his notebook during class. He carefully calculated the answer while checking that he had the correct significant figures.
The next day, when Romeo's professor gave him a nod of approval after reading Romeo's answers, Romeo realized that not only did he understand joules, but he enjoyed working problems out too.
The ending of Romeo and Joule-iet was not tragic like the play; instead, Romeo became a high school chemistry teacher who actually understood the subject he taught. Every time that Romeo had a struggling student, he told him the story of Romeo and the day he fell in love with
