What is pH?
First of all, it is an example of how ridiculous the English language is. How on earth "ph" and "f" make the same sound, I shall never understand! I vote that we should all talk on fones and that the name Phoebe should be spelled like it sounds: Feebee. HOW HARD IS THAT?
But perhaps more importantly, it is a logarithmic measure of the concentration of H+ ions. Soren Peter Lauritz Sorensen (was he Soarin' over California? Probably not. He was Danish, actually.) defined it in 1909.
pH = -log[H+] where log is a base 10 logarithm and H+ equals the concentration of hydrogen ions in moles per liter of solution. pH is an abbreviation for "power of hydrogen."
What household products can be used as acid/base indicators?
Testing for acids and bases sounds like a very tasty process:
Blackberries, raspberries, grapes, carrots, cherries, onions, tea, strawberries.
Other not-so-tasty-items that are indicators are:
Geranium petals, ExLax tablets (definitely not something you want to taste), mood lipsticks, morning glories, red cabbage, vanilla extract, washing soda, and about a hundred different types of petals (the best option for the outdoorsy chemist. I will stick with the lipstick and the tea.)
What is a universal indicator?
A universal indicator is a solution which hasn't learned to be confident with its self image, and therefore caters to the demands of a large variety of pH values by changing colors.
Can you classify acids from their formulas alone?
Because there are very few strong acids in aqueous solutions, it is fairly reasonable to assume that most will be weak acids. It might be helpful to memorize the most common strong acids, such as HCl, Hbr, Hl, H2SO4, HNO3, and HClO4.
If you don't want to do this, you can always order your acids to drop and give you twenty. That should clear up who's strong and who's weak pretty fast.
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