Exposing the Color Blind Glasses Scam

Take what this YouTuber has to say with a grain of salt. I will admit that I haven't researched and confirmed his claims, though I have watched all of the videos I'm posting today. I can say that they confirm something I've long been skeptical of: it seems unlikely that glorified sunglasses could produce colors in the eyes/brains of people who genetically can't see (or maybe can't differentiate) colors.

The enchroma glasses (and other, similar brands) seem to block a narrow band of colors leading to a greater differentiation between green and red meaning 'color blind' people can distinguish those colors more easily and can pass various 'color blind' tests like the classic numbers inside a circle. What the glasses seem incapable of, however, is actually letting those people see different colors that they inherently cannot see.

The science behind 'color blindness' is well explained here as is the science of what the glasses actually can do. The videos also explore common issues with scientific research - both conflicts of interest and confirmation biases as well as social pressure leading people to report results that may or may not actually be there. 

I've been captcha-ed.

See, it's funny because there's no way to know where the electrons likely are in the quantum mechanical model of the atom. The best we can do is predict where the electrons will likely be found.

So, I'm going to fail that captcha.

Light sucking flames look like magic

I've posted about this black fire on the blog before.

This one - from Steve Mould - doesn't add a whole lot new to the basic technique of shining a sodium vapor light on a methanol (stay safe out there, folks) flame that has been doped with sodium chloride. It does add in some more information on how the spectra are created and some info about enchroma glasses (more on them next week).

Can I lick it?

As Q-Tip once asked us...

Can I lick it?

Carl Wilhelm Scheele was likely the first person to isolate and prepare pure oxygen gas - though sadly for his historical reputation, not the first to publish his results.

Scheele also has gone down in history as a chemist known for tasting many of the chemicals that he experimented with in his laboratory.

So, can - or should - you lick the various elements? 

Some -the green ones - would probably be okay. Go ahead, for example, and lick a penny. It might be germy, but the metal itself isn't going to be a problem.

Other - the yellow ones - wouldn't be great, though they're not going to immediately kill you.

The red ones will likely immediately kill you or seriously harm you without much of a doubt.

The purple ones are radioactive and will kill you quickly.

So, can you lick it?

Maybe you can.

Water jokes

I promise these will be the last few joke posts for a while. I'll go back to more informative content next week.

See, it's funny because this is the easiest joke for any chemistry teacher or student to make. We build plastic water molecules for lots of purposes. The ones I use in class are magnetic to show the IMFs appropriately. 

At some point, a student spills the water molecules, and I almost automatically tell the other students to be careful, that there's water spilled on the floor.

It's funny the first time, and I keep making the joke year in and year out because it works for the students who are hearing it for the first time.

See, it's funny because 'my water broke' is a phrase that pregnant women use when their amniotic sac ruptures, typically suggesting that labor is beginning.

Here, however, the water breaking doesn't mean that at all; it sets up an expectation and then subverts that expectation. Hence, comedy!

Run! It's fluorine!

See, it's funny because fluorine has the highest electronegativity of any element on the periodic table meaning that it's great at taking electrons from every other element.

Fluorine would be Henry J. Waternoose III trying to take Boo from Sully in Monsters Inc except that Sully eventually is able to get Boo back. 

No element would get its electron back from Fluorine.

True facts...but not quite obvious at first...

See, it's funny because my first reaction - as I'm assuming many people's reaction is - was to say, "no, that's wrong...there are only two hydrogen atoms in a molecule of water, and there are way more than two stars in the galaxy."

Then I read it a little more closely and saw that it's claiming there are more hydrogens in a molecule or water than there are stars in the entire Solar System which is flatly true since there's only one star (the sun) at the center of our solar system.

It's misleading because "more _______ than there are stars in the galaxy" is a common phrase, and "more ______ than there are stars in the Solar System" is not a common phrase because it's dumb. It's just saying there's more than one of something.