I swear that it it total serendipity that I'm posting this on Christmas.
I schedule posts way in advance (10/1/23 is when I'm posting this one) and don't pay any attention as to when they get posted. I just line things up so they're on the next available Monday.
We couldn't get any better a time to see the redox reaction between a silver nitrate solution and a copper Chemistree, could we?
See, it's funny because a pH 10 solution would be basic.
The joke subverts your expectations. You see the, "[y]ou're a 10..." and think it's going to be a compliment, that the 10 is on a scale of 0-10.
But, no...they've put the 10 on a logarithmic pH scale where 10 means that the solution contains 1 x 10-10 moles of H+ ions per liter of solution.
Hah, take that!
You've been served!
I'm skeptical, I will admit it.
I want this light to work; I really do. But I also have to apply the Sagan standard to the light, and none of these videos or articles seem to provide that extraordinary evidence to me.
I keep coming back to the fact that the whole thing just sounds like a nicely engineered magnesium/copper cell with salt water (or urine) as the electrolytic path between the electrodes.
The magnesium electrode is going to run out. That's what anodes do.
Read more, please, and explain to me how I'm wrong. Sadly I haven't been able to find an actual schematic of the WaterLight anywhere.
The Brainiac video purports to show the explosions of alkali metals - rubidium and cesium - in a bathtub partially filled with water. The explosions are faked. They're bull-pucky.
There is an honest video - I think - of the alkali metals going into water thanks to World of Chemistry and Roald Hoffman.
There are also videos from Periodic Table of Videos from the University of Nottingham that go through information - not just the explosions in water - of the alkali metals.
The above video explains why the Brainiac videos are faked from a thermodynamic basis.
Don't trust the internet, folks.
Helium is a noble gas, so the helium itself is already green. The helium itself doesn't do any damage to the environment.
However, we only find the helium in pockets of methane meaning that any hunt for helium is really a hunt for methane - a really effective greenhouse gas.
The video explains that scientists are now hunting down pockets of nitrogen with helium rather than methane with helium. That would be a big find.
Your speakers aren't broken; the video is soundless.
It's also shows a very direct and simple way to make a superhydrophobic surface out of soot.
I recommend the first method from the video because acetone is way more flammable, and I have no idea where you'd get a wickless burner. I don't have any of those.
