Video by Andy Duckworth
The microgravity created in The Drop Tower only lasts 9.3s, but that’s long enough to see the strange things that happen when matter is freed from the pull of the Earth
This graphic (supposedly) represents the bonding mode of carbon. One of the reasons all life forms are carbon-based on this planet is that carbon can make four bonds arranged in a totally symmetrical tetrahedron shape, with the angle between any two of these bonds being 109.5 degrees.
This diagram has pictured it incorrectly. The carbon is shown in the center of the bottom square plane. That’s not where it should be. It should be floating in the center of the tetrahedron (which the figure above is not). Those H-C-H angles are labeled as 109 but they appear to be 90.
You’d think if they were making a science poster they’d get the actual geometry right. The figure above is not even a tetrahedron (4 vertices), it’s a square pyramid (5 vertices). A square pyramid has one square face and four triangular face; a tetrahedron only has four triangular faces. I’ve been staring at that figure above for awhile wondering if I was just missing something or seeing it wrong, but I don’t think I am. Four of the vertices are labeled H, the one in the center with the dotted lines to is it labeled C, and one is just…not labeled. If we assume it’s H then this molecule would be CH5, which…is impossible under normal conditions.
This is what carbon’s bonding actually looks like.
So pleased to see I remember TWO things from chemistry. I always joke that I remember exactly one thing from my two years of high school chemistry: You put out fires by starving them of oxygen. People always think I’m kidding.
I’m not.
(Source: rivarius)
npr:
NPR’s Planet Money talks with chemical engineer Sanat Kumar on why gold, of all elements, became the currency of choice for so many cultures. They work their way through the periodic table eliminating elements as possible currency, including lithium (“Money that spontaneously bursts into flames is clearly a bad idea”) and einsteinium (“Put some einsteinium in your pocket, and a year later, you’ll be dead”). Turns out gold is on a very short list of realistic choices.
