The chemistry of pyrotechnics (shorts)

After the fireworks video a couple of weeks ago, I went hunting more videos to explain the chemistry of pyrotechnics, and I found a bunch of them.

We'll start this week with the shorter videos.

The one above is the most comprehensive of the short (10 min or less) videos I've found. It explains a bit of history, some of the structure of, the chemical reactions taking place in, and the colors produced in common fireworks.

Start with that one. 

It isn't, however, a very pretty video. It's a lecture with an animated hand writing and drawing on a digital white board. Not the most exciting of the videos.

How Lava Lamps Are Made | The Making Of

Lava lamps, still relevant today.

So, molten blob of glass blown into bottle shape. Check.

Two questions there...one, we see the workers throw away two bottles in the maybe ten second film clip. That seems a really high failure rate or an incredible fluke. Two, I wonder what kind of glass they're using. I would think soda lime would risk cracking from the uneven heating from the bulbs versus the air.

Metal pieces spun and polished. Check.

If you want to see something about how dislocations allow for that metal spinning, check this out.

Fill 'the liquid' in the bottle along with a metal spring. Check.

So we know one of the liquids is 'colored wax' meaning it had to be nonpolar. I assume that the other liquid is something polar. I get that the family makes sure the trade secret is kept secret, but I desperately want to know if at least I'm correct about the polarities.

Maybe I should just stare at the lava lamp I own for a while to calm down.

The Last Molecule

 

Source - https://xkcd.com/2552/

See it's funny because there's no way that chemistry - or any science, really - will ever be 'complete'.

I'll quote here from the explainxkcd.com entry because it's really well written (as is usually the case)...

"[T]this may be a reference to a quote from around 1900, often attributed to Lord Kelvin or Albert Michelson: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement."

...

"In real life the number of ways to arrange atoms into molecules grows combinatorically with the number of atoms in a molecule. Since molecules can be extremely large (up until the point where gravity takes over and initiates nuclear fusion), the number of possible combinations is much much larger than the number of particles in the observable universe, making the full cataloging of all molecules impossible. Thus, a "final molecule" cannot be reached. In addition, chemistry is the study of the interaction and changing states of atoms and molecules, not simply the cataloging of all specimens of molecule. Even if we did have a list of every molecule, there are a far greater number of ways to continue studying them, so the field would still be nowhere near completed."

...

"As readers are aware of this, part of the humor comes from the very high percentages given to the different fields. [...] Another part of the humor is the precision."

Jokes for nerds, folks, jokes for nerds!

Isotopia: An exposition on Atomic Structure, Written in the Form of a Mime

Muriel Howorth (right) and Beverly Nichols, from Wikipedia

To quote from AtomicGardening.com which quotes from Time's October 30, 1950 issue...

Before a select audience of 250 rapt ladies and a dozen faintly bored gentlemen, some 13 bosomy A.E. Associates in flowing evening gowns gyrated gracefully about a stage in earnest imitation of atomic forces at work. An ample electron in black lace wound her way around two matrons labeled "proton" and "neutron" while an elderly ginger-haired Geiger counter clicked out their radioactive effect on a pretty girl named Agriculture. At a climactic moment, a Mrs. Monica Davial raced across the stage in spirited representation of a rat eating radioactive cheese. Mrs. Davial, it was noted in the program, had "recently returned from a trip to Tibet" and hence presumably had a nice understanding of these things. A small boy named Bunny May was on hand to guide recalcitrant atoms into their proper places.

Holy poop, this description is of "Isotopia: An Exposition on Atomic Structure, Written in the Form of a Mime" by Muriel Howorth (more on her in a bit). It seems that the 'ballet' was only performed once, but thankfully the hand-typed 'script' was donated to the British Library and preserved there. You can check out most of the text (some of the scans seem to have been cut off) on the Atomic Gardening website.

I love that atomic energy was such a fad in the mid 20th century, absolutely love it.

I wonder if I could convince Mr Fielder to have his theater students perform this someday...

Watch this beetle walk upside down underneath the water’s surface | Science News

Not much explanation in that video, luckily the Science News article does contain a little more explanation, mostly landing in the 'more research is needed' camp.

See, the beetle is walking upside down on the surface of the water but underneath the water. Apparently snails can do this, too.