May 27, 2024

Iron? Like iron?

Maybe maybe maybe
byu/Make-this-popular inmaybemaybemaybe

Yes, like iron.

I'm reminded of a question that one of my former students asked me quite a few years ago. We were two thirds of the way through the year of honors chemistry, and she said that she had been reading the ingredients on her toothpaste the day before and found sodium fluoride. She asked if that was the same sodium and the same fluorine that we'd been talking about all year.

"Yes," I said, "it's the same elements."

She followed up, "so, are there other things in my house that are made of elements?"

"Yeah," I answered, "everything in your house - and the house itself - is made of elements."

"Like, the same elements on the periodic table?"

Clearly, Sarah (or maybe it was Sara - it's been a while since this conversation) was one of the lucky ten thousand that day.

I've done the iron demonstration below in class before - though I used a blender to get even more iron particles out of the cereal by chopping it finer.

The video at the top, of course, also shows one of the lucky ten thousand today.

May 20, 2024

Hell...and a miscommunication...

Source - Cyanide & Happiness

See, it's funny because Joe doesn't seem to understand that warm gases expand, lowering their density and causing them to rise to higher levels. So I guess the first - assumedly top level from the diagram that the devil points at - would be the hottest level just like how the upper stories of a building are usually warmer than the lower stories.

Then again, the circles of hell as described by Dante Alighieri in his Inferno suggest that the lower levels are for the greater sinners where greater punishment is meted out, and that image seems to have permeated the popular consciousness, so Joe's thinking seems to be reasonable.

Maybe this is another example of two people both being correct but simply not communicating with each other.

Just talk it out, Devil and Joe.

Then again, if we assume that hell is somewhere underground - maybe under Turkmenistan, maybe somewhere else - then the geothermal gradient should likely be considered.

May 13, 2024

The Real Story of Oppenheimer


In case there's anybody out there who hasn't seen Oppenheimer at this point, I strongly recommend it.

Critics have been raving about it. It was half of a cultural event last summer. It's not 100% accurate - though it is largely factual. It isn't without criticism, but it's a great film.

With all that being said, there's so much more to the story of Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project. Do yourself a favor and watch the above video from the Veritasium YouTube channel.

And, if you want to know more, move onward to Fallout by Jim Ottaviani and American Prometheus by Bird and Sherwin.

Oppenheimer was a fascinating, brilliant man whose effect on our world is almost immeasurable, and he is a compelling source for a movie, a graphic novel, or a biography.

May 6, 2024

Great use of spaces on a building

 

Source - Reddit

I would 100% study in that building. 

It took me a while, but I was able to find that it's at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) in Mexico City. Here's a Google Map link.

And I appreciate that it's up to date.

No idea what they'll do when the eighth period has to be populated, though.