Introduction to Python for Chemistry

What you’ll learn
A brief review of some concepts of chemistry
Basic commands and data structures of the programming language Python
You will learn to develop an algorithmic thinking related to problems of chemistry
Solve problems of chemistry computationally
You will learn how to calculate the molecular formula of a compound with Python
You will learn how to balance a chemical equation with the built-in commands of Python
Requirements
A basic knowledge of chemistry is recommended, although before the exercises, a contextualization is given
Description
Are you a person with a background in chemistry, engineering, biology, or physical sciences interested in learning a programming language to model problems of chemistry with programming? Or maybe you are someone from a computer science background who is curious about how to model problems of chemistry computationally.

In this course, I’ll know how to model different problems of chemistry with Python! Through each section, I’ll work basic concepts of the programming language Python! The following classes are challenges in which I explain problems of chemistry and how to solve them. After watching these classes, it is expected that you try to solve these problems by yourself. In the following videos, I solve the problems of chemistry step-by-step in Python.

Each chapter is structured as follows:

Basic lectures about some subject of Python (variables, data types, loops, etc.

Videos of challenges, in which I explain the problems of chemistry that you must model in Python

Videos of the exercises being solved

In addition, there are three projects that you must solve after you watch a certain number of classes. In the first project, you must write code that reads a string of characters representing an organic compound (as SMILES), and generates the name of the compound according to IUPAC rules. In the second project, you must write code that generates the molecular formula of a compound given the elements present in the substance, their molar masses, and their relative amounts in a sample. And finally, in the third project, you must write a program that balances a chemical equation by multiplying the components of the reaction by random coefficients. Each of these projects is cumulative and requires knowledge about the commands and methods that have been seen so far in Python.

Since this course is introductory, we will only use built-in commands and libraries.

Who this course is for:
Chemists/chemistry students
Biologists/biology students and related areas such as pharmacy, biotechnology, etc
People from IT or computer science who want to learn how to problems of chemistry can be solved with Python