Week Eight: A Question of Balance

1. Semiconductor of the week:

Great web page explaining what a semiconductor is:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2072/semicond.htm

The semiconductor I chose is antimony because I wanted to learn about something I had never heard of before. And the word sounds kind of like a mix between Anthony and Alimony. It is silly to me that its symbol is Sb. What the heck? Well it is from the latin word “stibium” which could mean “mark,” “against one,” or “not found as a metal,” “not found unalloyed.” According to some sources the word means “monk killer” which makes the most sense to me as many early alchemists were monks and and antimony is poisonous. It acts on the body in the same way arsenic does -- small does add up, a large dose is lethal.

The element has been known for a very long time. That feels kind of nice. Something around with a history that humans have been playing with for a while. Because it has that shiny silvery luster, and we humans, like crows, like sparkly things, it had been used in make-up in the Middle East. The word “kohl” is used for a compound of antimony mixed with fat (which was used as the make-up). If you have any experience with eyeliner you will know that the word “kohl” is still used to describe certain kinds of eyeliner, though now that eyeliner -- often imported -- contains lead instead of antimony. Of course this is probably even more dangerous than if it were concocted with antimony.

Today antimony is used as a semiconductor in the computer industry. The most common use is to strengthen the hardness of lead in storage batteries. Other than other manufacturing uses and in safety matches and as a flame retardant in paint and enamel (the material burns so long as a flame is held to it, but then goes out as soon as the flame is removed), it had been used to treat Schistosomiasis (one of the most interesting names for a disease). Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease that comes from being in water that has a kind of snail that passes the parasite on to people (and other animals). It’s not necessarily deadly, but a chronic disease that can cause a lot of major problems, especially in children in developing countries. Add antimony on top of that and you’re probably a goner. It is reportedly no longer used to treat Schistosomiasis.

China contains the lion’s share of antimony -- estimated at over eighty percent (though there is a town in Utah called Antimony.) The element is found to be contained in over 100 minerals. It’s atomic number is 51.

2. Chembalancer Link

It was hard at first. The first one stumped me. Then when I figured that out I gathered some steam and they began to be really easy. The little explanations were kind of lost on me because I don't have enough exposure to the chemicals, can't really picture them in my mind, to really put the information into context. But the math was fun!

3. Balancing Equations Link

The website did not properly load for me...

Week Seven: Molecular Weight

1. Alkali Earth Metal of the Week: Meet the many faces of Strontium...




I picked strontium because I had never heard of it before and learned from Wikipedia that coral use this element to build their exoskeletons. Sealife is interesting to me and I like to imagine being an ocean dweller, so now I will relay what I learn to you about Strontium.

The periodic basics: It's in the second column on the P. Table right in the middle of all the other alkali earth metals. Like all of these elements, Strontium is also a soft metal that reacts with halogens to form ionic salts and with water to form alkaline hydroxides. The point here is that it is reactive (two electrons in the valence shell means it will try to lose those electrons to become a doubly charged positive ion). It's atomic number is 38 and its atomic weight is close to 88.

While Strontium is actually kind of a metalic white color, because it is so reactive it changes color when it hits the air and looks yellowish. It is softer than calcium. This fact is making me curious about the element's place in exoskeltons. But I suppose I will find out why in a minute if I can be patient. A fun little fact for those who like explosions: if strontium is finely powdered and exposed to air at room temperature, it will spontaneously combust. Yay, Strontium. What a dramatic trick. And, when it burns it makes the fire burn a crimson color. How lovely. Someone noticed this beautiful trick and now these volatile salts are used in the production of flares and in pyrotechnics (specifically, it causes the red color in fireworks).

Another interesting fact about this all-too-ignored element is that it is used in a compound with aluminium in the glass of your color TV's cathode ray tube to prevent X-ray emissions. What would happen without it? I don't know.

Medically, Strontium can be incorporated into bone because it acts like calcium. It has a bunch of other interesting uses, but they are a little difficult to understand exactly. For example, Strontium atoms are being used in an experimental atomic clock that has "record-setting accuracy."

It might also be found in your toothpaste. Or mine. I hope the tube doesn't blow up. Then again, that'd be kind of cool if it did. But messy.

The mineral strontianite was found in Strontian, in Scotland. Strontium is found in strontianite, as well as in celestine. Strontium is the fifteenth most abundant element on earth. Can you believe that? Have you ever heard of it? I really don't think I have! China has most of the world's strontium. Spain and Mexico have a lot, too.

Another interesting thing about Strontium is that it doesn't occur naturally, but needs to be coaxed into its elemental state through some chemical processes. It also has a lot of different isotopes that are used in many very diverse ways. It is a product of nuclear fallout and therefore can be very dangerous because it immitates calcium and the body does not release it. They say it is sparklier than a diamond -- at least that's what I think this means: "Strontium titanate is an interesting optical material as it has an extremely high refractive index and an optical dispersion greater than that of diamond." But diamonds are harder, and Strontium is soft, therefore if you wore it as a gemstone in a ring it would probably smush.

Okay, so I'm almost done here. But maybe I missed something in my life -- specifically, news of Strontium. Here is the opening paragraph from an article titled "Strontium: Breakthrough Against Osteoporosis:"

"Mention strontium to most people, and they will almost always immediately think of strontium-90, a highly dangerous, radioactive component of nuclear fallout produced during atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950s. As a result of above-ground nuclear testing, radioactive strontium spread throughout the environment and contaminated dairy products and other foods, and subsequently accumulated in the bones of both children and adults."

So maybe everyone but me has heard of this crazy element. I still haven't found out the bit about the coral yet. The whole article about Strontium's medical uses is here: http://www.worldhealth.net/news/strontium_breakthrough_against_osteoporo and actually pretty interesting.


2. Avogadro's Hypothesis link:

http://www.carlton.srsd119.ca/chemical/molemass/avogadro.htm

That was a lovely, straightforward and clear little web page. I did well on their quiz (was it for fifth graders?) which made me happy. What I took away from this website was how frustrating it must have been for those chemists all those years working off of Dalton's incorrect assumption that atoms from an element could not form a molecule and that everything had to be combined in a 1:1 ratio, yet they were not seeing anything left over. How crazy-making would that be??!! Thank goodness they finally realized that Avogadro was right. How surprising that someone else did not continue to keep his hypothesis in obscurity and decide to take credit for themselves (like the Marconi / Tesla radio debate). Very honorable to name it after Avogadro. I'm also wondering: did he really look like that?

3. What is a mole? Review of the link: http://www.ceramic-materials.com/cermat/education/111.html

I was following the web page along very nicely until the middle. Then I got confused so I consulted another source. A mole is the same number of particles found in 12 grams of carbon-12. There are 6.02 x 10exp23 particles in 12 grams of carbon 12. So a mole is a unit of measurement that equals 6.02 x 10exp23. What I am confused about now is the question "How many molecules are in one gram of a gaseous element?" I thought the link was leading us to the answer to this question, but now I am confused.

Week Six: Electrochemistry and Alchemy

1. Halogen of the week...

Halogen means “salt-former” -- compounds containing halogens are called salts. All halogens have 7 electrons in their outer shells.

Iodine was discovered in 1811 by Bernard Courtois, a fellow who was born in Dijon, France. He apprenticed as a pharmacist and then joined his father’s business, saltpeter manufacturing. Courtois was isolating sodium and potassium compounds from seaweed ash during the production of saltpeter (which is a component of gun powder, and in high demand during the Napolenonic Wars). He had added too much sulfuric acid to the seaweed ash and saw a purple vapor -- iodine. The word comes from the Greek “ioeides,” which means violet. (Following this discovery, Courtois went on to isolate morphine from opium.)

Iodine’s atomic number is 53. It is the least reactive of the halogens. Iodine is found concentrated in seawater and some sea plants, as well as in the mineral caliche, which is found in Chile. It is used in medicine (and at home often existing in your first aid kit), in photography (as silver iodide), to purify water, in halogen lights, and in dyes. Iodine is rare in the solar system and on Earth.

Iodine is required in trace amounts is all animals and in some plants. Kelp and algae have the ability to concentrate the element, which is why it has become an essential element in the food chain. It is the heaviest element known to be required by animals.

Our body uses iodine as a component of thyroid hormones which help to regulate our basal metabolic rate. The thyroid absorbs iodine from blood, and then distributes it into other bodily tissues, including the mammary glands. Iodine’s role in the mammary glands is to help regulate fetal and neonatal development. It acts as an antioxidant in other tissues.

If you eat kelp, some seafood, or plants grown in iodine-rich soil, you are getting your necessary iodine (recommended allowance is 150 micrograms per day). Iodine has also been added to some salt in order to ensure people get enough. In many developing countries people do not get enough iodine which can result in mental retardation, hypothyroidism, goiter, depression, weight gain, and extreme fatigue.



Iodine is also used in the manufacture of meth, so if you buy it in large quantities you will be investigated by the DEA.

2. Alchemy -- science, magic, art -- or all three?

From a very surface understanding of alchemy, it seems to me that the difference between alchemy and modern chemistry is that alchemy had a philosophical belief system underlying it, one that acknowledged and honored the "magic" of how matter can be transformed. Perhaps some of the early alchemists were "wrong" -- you apparently can't turn lead into gold, and it certainly isn't a good idea to eat lead -- but that doesn't mean that some of the underlying principles should be disregarded and forgotten, and that the mysterious should not be honored. In fact that seems like the biggest difference between alchemy and modern science. Modern science no longer honors the mysterious. It has rendered the whole world robotic and banal. Whereas alchemy wandered into questions of the soul and other metaphysical concerns such as unification with God. Their work was not separate from a spiritual path. Today, this would be seen as crazy or as a pollutant to true scientific pursuits. Which I think is too bad. I think one's work really should encompass life as a whole -- the spiritual, mental, physical, artistic, creative and mysterious elements of life.

Carl Jung used alchemical symbols to validate his theories about universality in psychological motifs. From the vantage point of human psychological and spiritual development, and an investigation of the mystery of who we really are and where we come from, the study of alchemical history and its symbols and philosophies are fascinating and possibly quite useful. I think that modern chemistry could also be looked at through the lens of metaphor and human development -- we have become quite detached from the natural world, are polluting ourselves and each other, and show a profound disrespect for life. But hope is on the horizon with the advent of scientific developments, such as the principles behind green chemistry, that are putting the recognition of the wholeness of the universe back into the mixing pot.

Here is a beautiful passage by M.L. von Franz from the book edited by Carl Jung "Man and His Symbols." The passage relates to the usefulness of alchemy as an epistemology for understanding the self:

"The alchemical stone (the lapis) symbolizes something that can be never be lost or dissolved, something eternal that some alchemists compared to the mystical experience of God within one's own soul. It usually takes prolonged suffering to burn away all the superfluous psychic elements concealing the stone. But some profound inner experience of the Self does occur to most people at least once in a lifetime. From the psychological standpoint, a genuinely religious attitude consists of an effort to discover this unique experience, and gradually to keep in tune with it (it is relevant that a stone is itself something permanent), so that the Self becomes an inner partner toward whom one's attention is continually turned."

Week Five: The Chemistry of Color and Nutrition

1. Inert Gas of the Week: There are only two true elemental inert gases that don't react with anything else to form a compound. Helium and Neon. I'm picking helium because of its abundance in the sun and the fact that kids suck it out of balloons to make their voices high pitched. So noble and so silly all at once. I was happy to discover that it is non-toxic, as well as colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It has the lovely and simple atomic number of two. It has the lowest boiling and melting points of all the elements, and is always a gas except under very extreme circumstances. Here's my drawing of helium: .

A large reserve of helium was found in 1903 in the U.S., the largest helium supplier. Besides being used to inflate balloons, helium is also used industrially in welding, to cool superconducting magnets, to lift airships and in cryogenics as a very cold liquid to store human heads for future revival. Because it has such a low freezing point, it is used by quantum physicists in testing the effects that something near absolute zero has on matter.

It has the distinction of being the most abundant element in the known universe--though relatively rare on earth. It is also the second lightest, next to hydrogen.

2. The Color of Foods in My Kitchen



Today there is a lot of green and orange in my kitchen. The neighbor gave me a bunch of apples from his mother's tree. There are some little green heirloom tomatoes in my yard that just recently ripened (and they are delicious). I have kale, broccoli, a small pumpkin and some carrots. Yellow is always present - bananas -- they go in my daily morning protein shake. Besides the fresh stuff there are a lot of boxes and cans and jars with varying colors inside them. That stuff takes up a lot of room, but I never really access it unless I'm desperate. There's also a pile of homemade chocolate chip cookies on the table (brown) but for some reason that one picture refused to upload.



I think in general I'm pretty good at eating well, and that because I've been planting a garden for a few years now, I am more aware of seasonal foods and those are often in my kitchen. Working full time and being in school has led to less time and energy to cook, however. I realized the other day that it had been awhile since I'd had any "real" food -- it had all been things like Clif bars and burritos and coffee. That makes me feel lousy. I like to cook. I love food. And I enjoy eating good food.



3. Thoughts on the Links

Element colors in flames: We have a lot of campfires and sometimes the light burns green or blue, but mostly it is orange. I thought I might find out what kind of chemicals are being released when I see these colors, but it seems that there are so many possibilities that unless I was in a laboratory burning things in a controlled way there is really no way to know for sure. However, I think it's great that we have this knowledge, for safety reasons. If there is a fire somewhere and it is burning some color other than orange, we might have a clue as to what is burning.

Luminescence: I learned that this is "cold light." This is a new concept for me. I am particularly interested in the living things that are phosphorescent, like fireflies (which I grew up with) and those tiny little creatures in the ocean that glow when your oar moves through the water. What an amazing, magical experience that was when I lived on a bay and had a little row boat and the night was so dark and the phosphorescent glow, like little stars, filled the water.

Week Four: Green Chemistry

1. Catalyst of the Week

This was much harder than I expected. Although I understand the green chemistry principle of using a catalyst in order to speed up processes thereby saving energy and / or materials, I did lots of different google searches to try to find a list of elements that are catalysts, but apparently it doesn’t work that way. So, I pulled out my old chemistry textbook and found reference to copper being a catalyst. So I looked that up and found an artist who uses copper as a catalyst in creating artwork made from explosions. Artist Evelyn Rosenberg created an art practice she has termed “Detonography.” She detonates a plastic explosive sheet over top of a carved sculpture that has a metal plate (copper) on top. Then she blows it up. The sculpture pops out of the copper. She has also tried it using brass and stainless steel, but copper works the best.



My chemistry text book refers to compounds of elements also working as catalysts. Sometimes catalysis is unfortunate, as when Chlorine (Cl), the result of CFCs, helps the ozone layer to disappear.

2. Science Without Social Responsibility--how did that happen?

I'd like to know if there was a time when science did take into account social responsibility. This topic has been on my mind for many years. When I was teaching second grade I was saddened and appalled at some of the experiments kids would cook up for the science fair. These experiment ideas would come from library books that suggested science fair projects. They usually involved killing plants in one way or another: "Do an experiment where you water one plant with water and another plant with hairspray. What happens?" or "Put one plant in the sun and the other in a closet for two weeks. What happens?" Or, this lovely example I pulled up from a science fair website--note that it took me about two seconds to find this:

The Experiment:

"PURPOSE: The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effect of insecticide on ladybugs.

I became interested in this idea because I know that ladybugs are beneficial insects. They live around insect pests, which leads to accidental spraying of the ladybugs. Farmers need the ladybugs to help keep down pest population, and need to avoid killing them accidentally.

The information gained from this experiment can warn farmers to be extra-careful when using insecticide.

HYPOTHESIS: My hypothesis is that the organic insecticide will kill the ladybugs faster than Sevin.

I base my hypothesis on the fact that my parents and I have used soap and water to kill potato bugs, and that is like an insecticide. The natural insecticides usually work better.

EXPERIMENT DESIGN: The constants in this study were: the same amount of insecticide, the same type of ladybug, and the same size of ladybug. The manipulated variable was: the type of insecticide. The responding variable was: the percentage of the ladybugs that die from each insecticide. To measure the responding variable I will observe the ladybugs after spraying them with insecticide, counting how many die.

End of experiment.

This experiment was done by a sweet little girl. At least that's how she looked in the picture, until science gave her the wise idea to kill these "beneficial insects" to prove a point.

Here is a picture from someone's science experiment where they fed one plant microwaved water and the other regular water. Can you guess which is which? True, this one is kind of interesting, but is it worth it?



This is how we're training elementary school students to become scientists. With many thoughtless experiments just so kids can go through the motions of the scientific method. Then they go to college with this training. They become adults with this training. They become leading scientists who place monkeys in cages, electrocute rats, and put humans through medical trials for drug upon drug. And the results are often disastrous. Look where all of our "advances" that science has given us have led us!

My solution for this dilemma is to add just one extra step in the scientific method--an ethics check. Ask yourself "What is the potential impact of this experiment? Will anything be harmed in the process?" and "What are the potential benefits and harms that may result from the possible uses of the knowledge gained from this experiment?" Just some simple questions that might cause people to stop and think.

This question also reminded me of my final physics paper from last trimester. I have pasted a portion of it below. The topic explored "Physics as Religion." The point I am trying to make with it here is that people are once again looking for meaning. Science displaced religion -- at least religion in its purest sense had some moral backbone to it. With the take over of science morality became a pollutant to the truth. But I think people are once again craving some kind of guidance. That's the point of this paper:

Science started replacing God in the late 1700s and early 1800s when scientific discoveries began to conflict with Christian thinking. At the end of the 1800s, with the publication of Darwin’s treatise, the “theory of evolution” began to replace a belief in God. Political ideologies, such as communism, which rose to popularity in the early 1900s, further eroded a reliance on religion and God. Perhaps God could be replaced by the social structure? In the West, the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 70s were partially successful because they were rebelling against the Christian thinking and behavior that had made somewhat of a comeback in the post World War II years of the late 1940s and 50s. The social revolution wanted to bring about greater freedoms and traditional Christianity was seen, for the most part, as restrictive. God was no longer speaking to the masses. The scientific worldview had begun to completely take over. In the 1980s and 1990s Christmas got pulled from school, the theory of evolution was commonly taught, and those still adhering to religious views began to home school their children. Yet it seems this mass exodus from churches left people feeling empty. The “Me Generation” got lost in consumerism, cocaine, overeating, and divorce; crime rates went up and things came crashing down. Once forbidden by religion, these behaviors became more and more okay. Scientific thought now led us and, for all its explanations for how things work, science doesn’t offer ethics, rules for the game, nor does it lend a lot of meaning -- it doesn’t answer the “whys” and “who am I” and “how should I behave.”

Enter physics. Physics is the only hard science that circles back around to exploring questions involving God. Through looking deeply at how things work, physicists began to offer up meaningful explanations that sounded a lot like the words of ancient mystics. David Bohm has been quoted as saying, “Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.” Niels Bohr said, “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” Physicists even admit to a search for the “God particle.”

The film “What the bleep do we know” packages science and religion together for consumption by popular culture. It gives us permission to pray to the great “observer” in the sky without feeling embarrassed about being “religious” since religion went out of style long ago, around the time of Sir Isaac Newton’s influential temper tantrum when he declared that he would not believe in the invisible, and not believe something simply because someone told him it was. Newton’s Principia Mathematica declares the rules for the scientific method. The first is “We are to admit no more causes of natural things such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.” The funny thing is that Newton, a pioneer of modern physics, insisted on discovering the world for himself. This method of discovery -- science -- has led us back to God after all.

So we have been on a long journey together, searching for the truth. With Newton we disregarded everything that we could not explain. We lost mystery, and without mystery we lost meaning. From the numbers of people running to see “What the bleep do we know” and buying books with titles like “5 Steps to a Quantum Life: How to Use the Astounding Secrets of Quantum Physics to Create the Life You Want,” it seems that we are welcoming the mystery back, and many of us prefer to have that mystery wrapped in science.

3. Atom Economy

The principle of atom economy is hopeful. It presents a challenge to chemists, which I think will be fun for them. It presents potential savings, in terms of money, I am guessing for producers of products. And it presents the possibility of cleaner and greener ways of continuing our habitual lifestyles in this world. I am thankful that some people are feeling a need to do the right thing, to inject science with some sense of common good. The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry are kind of like the ten commandments. It doesn't matter to me what kind of rules people follow -- religious or scientific -- so long as they are good rules, that take the common good into account.