Summary:
It is said that humans care for others because that is what humans do; unfortunately, there are others who have replaced their care to science. The desire to discover everything about a certain topic is encouraged by everyone, but sadly, some people are too focused on their research that they are blind to their contribution on the real world. In World War I, chemical warfare, although little effect on the battlefield, has not lost hope from everybody. Fritz Haber, one of the greatest mind in history, was interesting in converting chemicals for industrial product. WWI changed the direction of his work by giving him the pride to sever for his country. First he tried to use nitrogen gas to create an area of explosion where it would make contact with the enemy and infect them. Although the explosion worked, the same problem arose just like the Spartan's fire smoke; it had little effect on the battle field. One of the reason is because of the wind; since the gas didn't maintain its position long enough to infect the enemy, it would of been the same result as if they never threw it. He also tried it with bromine and chlorine, but he still faced the same problem. Still, chlorine gas explosion had a faster and stronger effect than the others.
Another advancement occurred with the super heavy siege gun called Big Bertha. This machine is able to eliminate everybody in the field within seconds. But with powerful weapons contain their flaws which includes the long set up and easily broken down by a few fire shots. In order to make the Big Bertha even more sturdy, scientist tried to combing molybdenum with the iron plate. It does make it sturdy but the Germans had little supply of molybdenum. In addition, scientist also discovered another element that can help the durability of the machine. They discovered that tungsten was a better element to add to the steel because of many reasons. First, tungsten has more electrons than molybdenum which means that it will take a lot more energy to make it excited. Also, since its atomic mass is higher, bullets will have a harder time damaging through the though and tight wall of tungsten.
Everything has a connection either with a good one or a bad one. In this world, there will always be a person who will try to take advantage of other people's needs. Portugal was one country that saw the opportunity to gain money by giving the Germans and Americans what they wanted, tungsten and molybdenum. Since Portugal was a neutral country, it was free to assist whoever they want. All that Portugal wanted was money and thanks to the dictatorship from Antonio Salzar. He brilliantly was able to do business with both the Allies and Confederates and in return gained an abundant of money. Congo was also a country which took advantage of the war because they had material needed to build cell phones. Tantalum and niobium were the elements needed make almost all cell phones. Interestingly enough, nobody from Congo administrated a mining system to collect all the supplies needed to sell. Everybody had the right to just take a shovel, mine it on their own, and sell it. Both countries made a fortune since they were lucky enough for their country to contain the material somebody else needed. Unfortunately, it was like they made money killing people since the materials they sold were solely for war.
Reflection:
Chemical warfare to me was a battlefield filled with poisonous gasses which could kill you the second you breath it. Instead, it was literally a waste of time since it had very little effect on the whole war. I can say that it is tricky to use these chemical explosives because only in the right conditions will it be effective. The idea of liquid bromine was interesting because even if there was wind, the liquid would stick to the clothes of the enemy and as it evaporates, it would easily affect the enemy. Just like the other explosives, the right conditions must be present; the temperature is too cold, the liquid bromine would just freeze becoming a solid which will not be able to get into the body of the enemy. Anyways, it is sad to see how scientist would be blinded from their own human morale. I understand that protecting out country is the right thing to do, but I sometimes wonder how far will our pride to protect our country will take us. We have know entered a stage in time where a push of a button will literally destroy whole countries to the point that it is to radioactive to survive there.
Metals are interesting to me because I can only see them as dull colored, strong, and durable material which are used in many applications. I've never heard of increasing the durability of steel by adding a coating of other strong metals. For me, I always though they mixed both metals to produce a mixture of both metals. Still, I am starting to understand more about the Periodic Table and its abundant of information which can be gathered by just looking at them. I do like to analyze patterns, so analyzing the Periodic Table by their columns, rows, specific location, and numerical information will tell me a lot about each element. Now I've learned that when seeing each element from each column from top to left, you can figure out that the bottom have more density, are much stronger, and are mostly solids. The top of each column are less denser and are mostly liquids and gasses.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Chapter 4
Summary:
After the discovery of the Big Bang theory, many scientist were eager to unravel many mysterious origins including the creation of the elements. At first, it was believed that they were not created, they just are, but further investigation lead many scientist to believed elements were created from stars. Since stars go through the process of fusion, it fuses two hydrogen to create one helium, the byproduct. Although, stars are also said to contain other elements besides hydrogen and helium. This puzzled many scientist because the Big Bang theory was said to spread out elements uniformly. Astronomers, the one responsible for the papers B2FH, solved this question by suggesting that the stars produce them themselves. This is because when stars are limited of hydrogen, they must keep creating energy by fussing helium instead. When two helium fuse, they get either lithium, boron, beryllium, or carbon elements. Then when the star runs out of the other elements, it starts fussing the next byproducts. This process will continue until it starts creating iron because that is when fussing elements above it will require more energy than it produces. When the supernova occurs, there is plenty energy to fuse other heavier elements to the rest of the elements from the Periodic Table.
After a certain supernova, our solar system began to form starting with the sun, then the gas giants, and finally the rocky planets. The gas giants fascinated scientist so much that the even named elements which had no relationship to the planets. The reason is because elements can freely become in any forms not possible on earth. This can be said more on Jupiter because it is considered as a failed star. Since it has some qualities of a star, it is able to do a lot with these elements. It was questioned that Jupiter may have formed a large diamond in its core, this is how much they believe Jupiter is to them. The rocky planets are a different story since all the elements gathered together to create the core to the crust.
Figuring out how the past was shouldn't of been possible without the the special properties of certain elements. Uranium and lead were used to identify the age of planet Earth since uranium decays to different lead isotopes. Iridium was used to discover many meteors asteroids, and comets which began the dinosaurs extinction. Also, rhenium, the decayed element from Iridium, identified the possibility of periodic asteroids to approach the Earth. Later on, it was confirmed that the sun isn't really the center of everything; it also moves around the Milky Way and goes up and down perpendicular to our galaxy. This is the reason why the probability is high when considering periodic asteroids. In the end, hydrogen is the start of every element which means that "We are all star stuff."
Reflection:
I wonder how the B2FH were able to discover the origin of all elements since all they did was explain from where they came from and not how they figure it out. It may be common sense to look it the way they looked at it but its interesting what made them reach to that conclusion. In the end, they were proven correct which is a little unreal because everything they said were conjectures. It really shows how a real scientist is, a person who is able to think of every possibility as an answer to the question and figure out which makes could not be the answer. Also, I was interested how although scientist knew about fusion as the method to keep the stars alive, they weren't able to realize that not only hydrogen were fusing together in the core. I guess the technology is part of this problem since as technology improved, it helped prove the paper B2FH.
I always learned about decaying when analyzing a dead organism but it can also be used to finding other parts of history. It is an impressive method of comparing the ration of a common element to its decayed element from the past and its present ratio in order to learn more about the past. For history, people would never be able to debate whether historical information proven by science is true or false because everything in science is a fact until proven otherwise. This could be compared to the US judicial system works, until proven guilty, the prosecutor will be considered not guilty.
After the discovery of the Big Bang theory, many scientist were eager to unravel many mysterious origins including the creation of the elements. At first, it was believed that they were not created, they just are, but further investigation lead many scientist to believed elements were created from stars. Since stars go through the process of fusion, it fuses two hydrogen to create one helium, the byproduct. Although, stars are also said to contain other elements besides hydrogen and helium. This puzzled many scientist because the Big Bang theory was said to spread out elements uniformly. Astronomers, the one responsible for the papers B2FH, solved this question by suggesting that the stars produce them themselves. This is because when stars are limited of hydrogen, they must keep creating energy by fussing helium instead. When two helium fuse, they get either lithium, boron, beryllium, or carbon elements. Then when the star runs out of the other elements, it starts fussing the next byproducts. This process will continue until it starts creating iron because that is when fussing elements above it will require more energy than it produces. When the supernova occurs, there is plenty energy to fuse other heavier elements to the rest of the elements from the Periodic Table.
After a certain supernova, our solar system began to form starting with the sun, then the gas giants, and finally the rocky planets. The gas giants fascinated scientist so much that the even named elements which had no relationship to the planets. The reason is because elements can freely become in any forms not possible on earth. This can be said more on Jupiter because it is considered as a failed star. Since it has some qualities of a star, it is able to do a lot with these elements. It was questioned that Jupiter may have formed a large diamond in its core, this is how much they believe Jupiter is to them. The rocky planets are a different story since all the elements gathered together to create the core to the crust.
Figuring out how the past was shouldn't of been possible without the the special properties of certain elements. Uranium and lead were used to identify the age of planet Earth since uranium decays to different lead isotopes. Iridium was used to discover many meteors asteroids, and comets which began the dinosaurs extinction. Also, rhenium, the decayed element from Iridium, identified the possibility of periodic asteroids to approach the Earth. Later on, it was confirmed that the sun isn't really the center of everything; it also moves around the Milky Way and goes up and down perpendicular to our galaxy. This is the reason why the probability is high when considering periodic asteroids. In the end, hydrogen is the start of every element which means that "We are all star stuff."
Reflection:
I wonder how the B2FH were able to discover the origin of all elements since all they did was explain from where they came from and not how they figure it out. It may be common sense to look it the way they looked at it but its interesting what made them reach to that conclusion. In the end, they were proven correct which is a little unreal because everything they said were conjectures. It really shows how a real scientist is, a person who is able to think of every possibility as an answer to the question and figure out which makes could not be the answer. Also, I was interested how although scientist knew about fusion as the method to keep the stars alive, they weren't able to realize that not only hydrogen were fusing together in the core. I guess the technology is part of this problem since as technology improved, it helped prove the paper B2FH.
I always learned about decaying when analyzing a dead organism but it can also be used to finding other parts of history. It is an impressive method of comparing the ration of a common element to its decayed element from the past and its present ratio in order to learn more about the past. For history, people would never be able to debate whether historical information proven by science is true or false because everything in science is a fact until proven otherwise. This could be compared to the US judicial system works, until proven guilty, the prosecutor will be considered not guilty.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Chapter 3
Summary:
There are many scientist who contributed on the development of the Periodic Table; one who helped identify the many different elements was Bunsen. In addition of creating the Bunsen burner, he also created the first spectroscope which identify elements by looking at the colors which each element shows when put into an excited state. With the Bunsen burner, Bunsen was able to excite the element enough so that the spectroscope can pick up the colors it emitted. Mendeleev was the man who is claimed as the creator of the Periodic Table. Even though he did finalize the Periodic Table, he wasn't responsible for all the work. Many other scientists, although little recognition, also helped by putting some pieces of the puzzle. Mendeleev was the one who figured out how to put all those build parts of the puzzles from the other scientist to finish the whole puzzle, and he also was one of the few who saw the full picture. With this, Mendeleev was able to find patterns and predict future elements which were soon to be discovered.
Mendeleeve believed that predicting the existence of certain elements with their specific numerical information would give him the power to claim any discovered elements which fits his prediction. Thought, when Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered a new element, a controversy rose between theoretical and experimental scientist. One exclaimed that since they predicted the discovery, they should be given the credit, and the other responded that since they physically found the discovery, they should be given the credit. In the case of both Mendeleeve and Lecop de Boisbaudran, Mendeleeve claims that if it wasn't for his prediction, Lecop de Boisdaudran would of never discovered the element. Lecop de Boisdaudran disagreed saying that he never even saw the table Mendeleev created. He believed that because of this, Mendeleev had no right to claim partial credit. The only thing that can be said from this are words spoken by Eisntien who said,"It is theory that decides what we can observe."
During this event, many other series of event occurred which all concluded to the opening of a mine in Ytterby. This mine was very special because if Mendeleeve would of traveled west from where he was, the problem of the missing lanthanide from his table would be resolved. This is because in this mine, all the missing lanthanides were discovered there. Many other scientist instead discovered these new elements. Mendeleeve, a man with a troubled childhood, became the man who discovered the Periodic Table and was the one who saw the pattern to predict future elements. Sadly, his moody nature limited him to live in peace; his hard work and bold predictions were very little praised by everyone. Today, because of his life story, many historians consider him as the first person to create the Periodic Table.
Reflection:
I can believe that not every discovery was only discovered by one person; although there could be some cases where this could happen, there are many discoveries which wouldn't of been done without the contributions of many other scientist in the past. For example, in physics, you need arithmetic to solve mathematical problems. This means that the person who developed arithmetic should also be giving credit for any discoveries made. Although this is going too far, I still believe that everyone should recognize their own discoveries as their recognition and their prize because that is where they put their mind and soul. Regarding the controversy between theoretical and experimental scientist, I believe that both should be acknowledge since without the theoretical scientist, the experimental scientist wouldn't know where to start. Without the experimental scientist, the theoretical scientist would never know if their findings are true.
It is interesting how even without the noble gasses even being discovered, the Periodic Table which Mendeleev created still worked. It might be because there was still not enough information about each element to figure out that there was a missing column. I would agree that creating the Periodic Table was a challenge which only Mendeleev was able to discover it. It is also interesting how the musical scale do-re-me-fa-sol-la-ti-do is very significant. I still don't know why this musical scale is so important because they are random notes which humans created. I don't get why eight is "the number" to look out for. Still, I would love to see other discoveries that apply to this musical scale.
There are many scientist who contributed on the development of the Periodic Table; one who helped identify the many different elements was Bunsen. In addition of creating the Bunsen burner, he also created the first spectroscope which identify elements by looking at the colors which each element shows when put into an excited state. With the Bunsen burner, Bunsen was able to excite the element enough so that the spectroscope can pick up the colors it emitted. Mendeleev was the man who is claimed as the creator of the Periodic Table. Even though he did finalize the Periodic Table, he wasn't responsible for all the work. Many other scientists, although little recognition, also helped by putting some pieces of the puzzle. Mendeleev was the one who figured out how to put all those build parts of the puzzles from the other scientist to finish the whole puzzle, and he also was one of the few who saw the full picture. With this, Mendeleev was able to find patterns and predict future elements which were soon to be discovered.
Mendeleeve believed that predicting the existence of certain elements with their specific numerical information would give him the power to claim any discovered elements which fits his prediction. Thought, when Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered a new element, a controversy rose between theoretical and experimental scientist. One exclaimed that since they predicted the discovery, they should be given the credit, and the other responded that since they physically found the discovery, they should be given the credit. In the case of both Mendeleeve and Lecop de Boisbaudran, Mendeleeve claims that if it wasn't for his prediction, Lecop de Boisdaudran would of never discovered the element. Lecop de Boisdaudran disagreed saying that he never even saw the table Mendeleev created. He believed that because of this, Mendeleev had no right to claim partial credit. The only thing that can be said from this are words spoken by Eisntien who said,"It is theory that decides what we can observe."
During this event, many other series of event occurred which all concluded to the opening of a mine in Ytterby. This mine was very special because if Mendeleeve would of traveled west from where he was, the problem of the missing lanthanide from his table would be resolved. This is because in this mine, all the missing lanthanides were discovered there. Many other scientist instead discovered these new elements. Mendeleeve, a man with a troubled childhood, became the man who discovered the Periodic Table and was the one who saw the pattern to predict future elements. Sadly, his moody nature limited him to live in peace; his hard work and bold predictions were very little praised by everyone. Today, because of his life story, many historians consider him as the first person to create the Periodic Table.
Reflection:
I can believe that not every discovery was only discovered by one person; although there could be some cases where this could happen, there are many discoveries which wouldn't of been done without the contributions of many other scientist in the past. For example, in physics, you need arithmetic to solve mathematical problems. This means that the person who developed arithmetic should also be giving credit for any discoveries made. Although this is going too far, I still believe that everyone should recognize their own discoveries as their recognition and their prize because that is where they put their mind and soul. Regarding the controversy between theoretical and experimental scientist, I believe that both should be acknowledge since without the theoretical scientist, the experimental scientist wouldn't know where to start. Without the experimental scientist, the theoretical scientist would never know if their findings are true.
It is interesting how even without the noble gasses even being discovered, the Periodic Table which Mendeleev created still worked. It might be because there was still not enough information about each element to figure out that there was a missing column. I would agree that creating the Periodic Table was a challenge which only Mendeleev was able to discover it. It is also interesting how the musical scale do-re-me-fa-sol-la-ti-do is very significant. I still don't know why this musical scale is so important because they are random notes which humans created. I don't get why eight is "the number" to look out for. Still, I would love to see other discoveries that apply to this musical scale.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Chapter 2
Summary:
Words are meant for communication to run smoothly by identifying all objects and ideas. In chemistry, there are long words that names one of the most important and microscopic structures, proteins. Although taken out of the oxford dictionary for not being a legitimate word, the tobacco mosaic virus was once the longest word in the dictionary. Now and days, the length of this name does not compare to recent protein discovered; as an estimation, it would take about "forty-seven single-spaced pages of a Microsoft Word document in Times New Roman 12-point font" to write down the name of the protein titin. Protein is very important because it is responsible for all life to exist. The reason for this is of its elemental structure. Most, but not all protein are made out of oxygen and nitrogen, but the most important part of every protein is its backbone which is made out of carbon.
An idea surged that silicon, who's location stands bottom of carbon, should be able to replace carbon as a substitute. The reason for this is because both carbon and silicon have their outer most shell filled with four electrons which means that both should interact with other elements exactly the same way. Although some of this is true, silicon just is not fit to fill in the job to create and sustain life like carbon because carbon has qualities what silicon doesn't have. For example, unlike carbon based molecules like carbon dioxide, replacing silicon with carbon will make the substance from a gas to a solid which would be almost impossible, as a byproduct, to be release from the body since gasses are easier to transport than solids. Also, carbon can form complex covalent bond structure which store an abundant of chemical energy; silicon cannot form these structures because it doesn't have the atomic structure to create and sustain double bonds.
Although silicon cannot replace the job of carbon, it is still a very important element because its other qualities fits best with another special job, electronics. Trying to create a better amplifier, scientists tried to work with silicon since it property of semi conductor was perfect in order to control the flow of electrons. It took many years to find the best was to use the silicon, but when they were able to produce the first silicon transistor, the importance of silicon rose. Since it was very cheap and abundant, silicon is still in use, staying strong with doing its job. Just like the thought of silicon replacing carbon, germanium was an alternative for silicon. Since both are semi conductors and have the same number of electrons in their outer energy level, they would have the same result. Unfortunately, germanium was very not as abundant and cheap as silicon so it remained in the periodic table forgotten like many others.
Reflection:
The idea of silicon replacing carbon in molecules was very interesting and amazing because at first, I thought of the possibility to create a living organism with pure silicon based structures (basically replacing all of were carbon would of taken place). Learning this also lead me believe that we could experiment this same idea with other molecules by replacing one element with its bottom neighbors from the periodic table. Sadly I was reminded that every element have their own characteristics which means that although they have the possibility to replace certain elements from a molecule, the molecule itself would overcome changes which either are helpful or harmful. I am also amazed how scientist really are because in my experience, scientist only care about discovering new things in order to expand the knowledge of the universe. It is interesting that scientist would have a "war" just for recognition; still, not being recognized at all will decrease the desire to continue with their research, so at least it still serves a purpose when giving recognition to people who steal it.
I enjoyed this chapter because it explained something that I was confused about. In order for our body to produce energy, it needs to produce ATP and then break it down to release the stored chemical energy. For a long time, I was taught that breaking down molecules took more energy than bonding elements together. Now I learned that since ATP is a structure with carbon as its backbone, the carbon structure should stores more energy than is required to break down the molecule. Now I wonder what is the ratio of energy from the carbon structure to the energy required to break down the molecule.
Words are meant for communication to run smoothly by identifying all objects and ideas. In chemistry, there are long words that names one of the most important and microscopic structures, proteins. Although taken out of the oxford dictionary for not being a legitimate word, the tobacco mosaic virus was once the longest word in the dictionary. Now and days, the length of this name does not compare to recent protein discovered; as an estimation, it would take about "forty-seven single-spaced pages of a Microsoft Word document in Times New Roman 12-point font" to write down the name of the protein titin. Protein is very important because it is responsible for all life to exist. The reason for this is of its elemental structure. Most, but not all protein are made out of oxygen and nitrogen, but the most important part of every protein is its backbone which is made out of carbon.
An idea surged that silicon, who's location stands bottom of carbon, should be able to replace carbon as a substitute. The reason for this is because both carbon and silicon have their outer most shell filled with four electrons which means that both should interact with other elements exactly the same way. Although some of this is true, silicon just is not fit to fill in the job to create and sustain life like carbon because carbon has qualities what silicon doesn't have. For example, unlike carbon based molecules like carbon dioxide, replacing silicon with carbon will make the substance from a gas to a solid which would be almost impossible, as a byproduct, to be release from the body since gasses are easier to transport than solids. Also, carbon can form complex covalent bond structure which store an abundant of chemical energy; silicon cannot form these structures because it doesn't have the atomic structure to create and sustain double bonds.
Although silicon cannot replace the job of carbon, it is still a very important element because its other qualities fits best with another special job, electronics. Trying to create a better amplifier, scientists tried to work with silicon since it property of semi conductor was perfect in order to control the flow of electrons. It took many years to find the best was to use the silicon, but when they were able to produce the first silicon transistor, the importance of silicon rose. Since it was very cheap and abundant, silicon is still in use, staying strong with doing its job. Just like the thought of silicon replacing carbon, germanium was an alternative for silicon. Since both are semi conductors and have the same number of electrons in their outer energy level, they would have the same result. Unfortunately, germanium was very not as abundant and cheap as silicon so it remained in the periodic table forgotten like many others.
Reflection:
The idea of silicon replacing carbon in molecules was very interesting and amazing because at first, I thought of the possibility to create a living organism with pure silicon based structures (basically replacing all of were carbon would of taken place). Learning this also lead me believe that we could experiment this same idea with other molecules by replacing one element with its bottom neighbors from the periodic table. Sadly I was reminded that every element have their own characteristics which means that although they have the possibility to replace certain elements from a molecule, the molecule itself would overcome changes which either are helpful or harmful. I am also amazed how scientist really are because in my experience, scientist only care about discovering new things in order to expand the knowledge of the universe. It is interesting that scientist would have a "war" just for recognition; still, not being recognized at all will decrease the desire to continue with their research, so at least it still serves a purpose when giving recognition to people who steal it.
I enjoyed this chapter because it explained something that I was confused about. In order for our body to produce energy, it needs to produce ATP and then break it down to release the stored chemical energy. For a long time, I was taught that breaking down molecules took more energy than bonding elements together. Now I learned that since ATP is a structure with carbon as its backbone, the carbon structure should stores more energy than is required to break down the molecule. Now I wonder what is the ratio of energy from the carbon structure to the energy required to break down the molecule.
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Chapter 1
Summary:
The Periodic Table is mostly in every science class, but there is a better approach to introduce this iconic science tool. First, the shape of the Periodic Table should be inspected like a castle wall because each element is appropriately placed for a purpose. Each element strengthens the significance of the whole Periodic Table; if one is proven not to belong where it is, science would be corrupted. By comparing the importance of the Periodic Table as a castle wall, comparing it to a map will make it easier to navigate through all the elements.
Plato, one of the greatest Greek philosopher, contributed to the meaning of noble gasses as an unchanging, perfect, and ideal substance. He believes that everything either originates form or pursues this perfect thing weather it is a tree, an animal, or a piece of rock. Unfortunately, scientist were unable to easily figure out the existence of these ideal elements because the uncertainty of a substance being a pure element made scientist struggle to identify them.
Two great scientist, although their hard times trying to be recognized, uncovered many discoveries which all had to do with noble gasses and their ideal image. Lewis is a scientist who was interested electrons and their interactions between atoms, so because of this, Lewis worked on investigating with acids and bases. Since every atom likes to be stable like the noble gasses, they will either share or steal an electron with another atom usually benefiting both atoms which usually results in a bond between them. This exchange of electrons was defined as a chemical reaction, and the most dramatic example is acids interactions.
Goeppert-Mayer was also interested in the noble gases and their stability. Although the electrons were the ones that made an atom stable, protons also have a purpose in the stability of an atom. Many scientists were agreed with electrons filling each energy level which are called shells, By filling each shell, the atom will not interact with other atoms to receive or give off an electron. Goeppert-Mayer though, believed that protons also had some form of shells, like the electrons, which needed to be filled up before decaying. She later named these shells as magic nuclei which for short, is the right number of protons and neutrons to produce a spherical shape.
Reflection:
There is a lot of information one can get by just looking at specific parts of the periodic table, and I am fascinated on how much more there is still to learn from the most well known tool. I can now see why this is one of the most fundamental contribution to the scientific field. Also, it surprises me who noble gasses, represented by Plato, are "perfect", the ideal atomic structure. I believed that perfection is only an illusion which everybody tries to pursue. The noble gasses shows just how limitless the world of science is; things may not be believed by others but in science, when something is proven to exist, it is for real.
The first thing I thought when thinking of a stable atom was its electrons because it is always fighting to fill their outer most shell. I never thought that nuclei also contributed to this stability. Instead of an atom being chemically reactive, an atom with an unstable nuclei will be unstable enough to literally break of into two different atoms, This magic nuclei is very interesting to learn about because just like the electrons, it is important to know how and which atom are stable. It will also be interesting to identifying elements which are stable in both their electrons and their nuclei.
The Periodic Table is mostly in every science class, but there is a better approach to introduce this iconic science tool. First, the shape of the Periodic Table should be inspected like a castle wall because each element is appropriately placed for a purpose. Each element strengthens the significance of the whole Periodic Table; if one is proven not to belong where it is, science would be corrupted. By comparing the importance of the Periodic Table as a castle wall, comparing it to a map will make it easier to navigate through all the elements.
Plato, one of the greatest Greek philosopher, contributed to the meaning of noble gasses as an unchanging, perfect, and ideal substance. He believes that everything either originates form or pursues this perfect thing weather it is a tree, an animal, or a piece of rock. Unfortunately, scientist were unable to easily figure out the existence of these ideal elements because the uncertainty of a substance being a pure element made scientist struggle to identify them.
Two great scientist, although their hard times trying to be recognized, uncovered many discoveries which all had to do with noble gasses and their ideal image. Lewis is a scientist who was interested electrons and their interactions between atoms, so because of this, Lewis worked on investigating with acids and bases. Since every atom likes to be stable like the noble gasses, they will either share or steal an electron with another atom usually benefiting both atoms which usually results in a bond between them. This exchange of electrons was defined as a chemical reaction, and the most dramatic example is acids interactions.
Goeppert-Mayer was also interested in the noble gases and their stability. Although the electrons were the ones that made an atom stable, protons also have a purpose in the stability of an atom. Many scientists were agreed with electrons filling each energy level which are called shells, By filling each shell, the atom will not interact with other atoms to receive or give off an electron. Goeppert-Mayer though, believed that protons also had some form of shells, like the electrons, which needed to be filled up before decaying. She later named these shells as magic nuclei which for short, is the right number of protons and neutrons to produce a spherical shape.
Reflection:
There is a lot of information one can get by just looking at specific parts of the periodic table, and I am fascinated on how much more there is still to learn from the most well known tool. I can now see why this is one of the most fundamental contribution to the scientific field. Also, it surprises me who noble gasses, represented by Plato, are "perfect", the ideal atomic structure. I believed that perfection is only an illusion which everybody tries to pursue. The noble gasses shows just how limitless the world of science is; things may not be believed by others but in science, when something is proven to exist, it is for real.
The first thing I thought when thinking of a stable atom was its electrons because it is always fighting to fill their outer most shell. I never thought that nuclei also contributed to this stability. Instead of an atom being chemically reactive, an atom with an unstable nuclei will be unstable enough to literally break of into two different atoms, This magic nuclei is very interesting to learn about because just like the electrons, it is important to know how and which atom are stable. It will also be interesting to identifying elements which are stable in both their electrons and their nuclei.
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