The Periodic Table: Every Year

The discovery of the periodic law and subsequent creation and refinement of the periodic table stands beside the discovery of atoms as the be all and end all of chemistry in my eyes. 

Realizing that the material of our world corresponds to an underlying organizational principle and being able to - even if bit by bit - understand that principle is absolutely stunning to me.

Today's video looks at how what we think of as the modern periodic table came to be, from initially un-organized list of elements through to a quantum-mechanical-model-based periodic table.

Some of the changes come and go fairly quickly in the video, so be ready to pause and review the notes as the video plays.

Making of a jacketed glass chemical reactor

Source - reddit

Scientific glass blowing is just so amazing to watch.

There was an attempt...to put out an oil fire

Source - reddit

Don't use water to put out and oil/grease fire.

Ever...

See, if the oil is hot enough to catch fire, it's hot enough to boil any added water.

Boiled water means the oil being aerosolized into tiny, incredibly flammable droplets which catch fire and turn a small fire into a raging inferno incredibly quickly - as the above video shows.

Instead, smother the fire.

Put a lid on the pot.

Put a baking sheet on the pot.

This Molecule Has Saved Billions of Lives, How Do We Make It Without Killing Ourselves?

Fritz Haber was brilliant. His discovery of the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia from the air was a miracle, allowing for the vast production of fertilizer which lead to our ability to feed the billions of people on our planet, rightfully earning Haber an Nobel Prize.

Yet, he also produced chlorine gas and conducted experiments that eventually lead to the development of pesticide gases such as Zyklon B, used to kill millions of Jewish people in Nazi concentration camps. I'm not sure where Haber would have fallen when his soul was weighed upon his passing from this Earth, but I know we couldn't feed as many as we feed without the Haber-Bosch process.

Today's SciShow video explains how the Haber-Bosch process produces carbon dioxide and some of the alternative processes that chemists are exploring that wouldn't produce carbon dioxide along the way.