Ciro Santilli
OurBigBook.comChemistry is fun. Too hard for precise physics (pre quantum computing, see also quantum chemistry), but not too hard for some maths like social sciences.
And it underpins biology.
100 Greatest Discoveries - Chemistry by the Discovery Channel (2005)
Source. Pretty good within what you can expect from popular science. The discovery selection is solid, and he interviews 3 Nobel Prize laureates, only one about stuff they invented, so you can see their faces. The short non-precise scenes of epoch are also pleasing. Part of 100 Greatest Discoveries by the Discovery Channel (2004-2005).Theory that atoms exist, i.e. matter is not continuous.
Much before atoms were thought to be "experimentally real", chemists from the 19th century already used "conceptual atoms" as units for the proportions observed in macroscopic chemical reactions, e.g. . The thing is, there was still the possibility that those proportions were made up of something continuous that for some reason could only combine in the given proportions, so the atoms could only be strictly consider calculatory devices pending further evidence.
Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) chapter 5 "The reality of molecules" has some good mentions. Notably, physicists generally came to believe in atoms earlier than chemists, because the phenomena they were most interested in, e.g. pressure in the ideal gas law, and then Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics just scream atoms more loudly than chemical reactions, as they saw that these phenomena could be explained to some degree by traditional mechanics of little balls.
Confusion around the probabilistic nature of the second law of thermodynamics was also used as a physical counterargument by some. Pais mentions that Wilhelm Ostwald notably argued that the time reversibility of classical mechanics + the second law being a fundamental law of physics (and not just probabilistic, which is the correct hypothesis as we now understand) must imply that atoms are not classic billiard balls, otherwise the second law could be broken.
Pais also mentions that a big "chemical" breakthrough was isomers suggest that atoms exist.
Very direct evidence evidence:
- Brownian motion mathematical analysis in 1908. Brownian motion just makes it too clear that liquids cannot be continuous... if they were, there would obviously be no Brownian motion, full stop.
- X-ray crystallography: it sees crystal latices
- scanning tunnelling microscope: it sees individual atoms for Christ's sake, what else do you want?
Figure 1. Still from A boy and his atom by IBM. Source.
Less direct evidence:
- 1874 Isomers suggest that atoms exist
- kinetic theory of gases seems to explain certain phenomena really well
Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) page 40 mentions several methods that Einstein used to "prove" that atoms were real. Perhaps the greatest argument of all is that several unrelated methods give the same estimates of atom size/mass:
- from 1905:
- in light quantum paper
- enabled by experimental work of Wilhelm Pfeffer on producing rigid membranes
- sugar molecules in water
- Brownian motion: investigations on the theory of the Brownian movement by Einstein (1905)
- 1911: blueness of the sky and critical opalescence
Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) mentions that this has a good summary of the atomic theory evidence that was present at the time, and which had become basically indisputable at or soon after that date.
On Wikimedia Commons since it is now public domain in most countries: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Perrin,_Jean_-_Les_Atomes,_F%C3%A9lix_Alcan,_1913.djvu
An English translation from 1916 by English chemist Dalziel Llewellyn Hammick on the Internet Archive, also on the public domain: archive.org/details/atoms00hammgoog
Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) page 85:so it is quite cool to see that organic chemistry is one of the things that pushed atomic theory forward. Because when you start to observe that isomers has different characteristics, despite identical proportions of atoms, this is really hard to explain without talking about the relative positions of the atoms within molecules!
However, it became increasingly difficult in chemical circles to deny the reality of molecules after 1874, the year in which Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff and Joseph Achille Le Bel independently explained the isomerism of certain organic substances in terms of stereochemical properties of carbon compounds.
TODO: is there anything even more precise that points to atoms in stereoisomers besides just the "two isomers with different properties" thing?
Small microscopic visible particles move randomly around in water.
If water were continuous, this shouldn't happen. Therefore this serves as one important evidence of atomic theory.
The amount it moves also quantitatively matches with the expected properties of water and the floating particles, was was settled in 1905 by Einstein at: investigations on the theory of the Brownian movement by Einstein (1905).
This suggestion that Brownian motion comes from the movement of atoms had been made much before Einstein however, and passed tortuous discussions. Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) page 93 explains it well. There had already been infinite discussion on possible causes of those movements besides atomic theory, and many ideas were rejected as incompatible with observations:The first suggestions of atomic theory were from the 1860s.
Further investigations eliminated such causes as temperature gradients, mechanical disturbances, capillary actions, irradiation of the liquid (as long as the resulting temperature increase can be neglected), and the presence of convection currents within the liquid.
Tiny uniform plastic beads called "microbeads" are the preferred 2019 modern method of doing this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbead
Original well known observation in 1827 by Brown, with further experiments and interpretation in 1908 by Jean Baptiste Perrin. Possible precursor observation in 1785 by Jan Ingenhousz, not sure why he wasn't credited better.
Was the first model to explain the Balmer series, notably linking atomic spectra to the Planck constant and therefore to other initial quantum mechanical observations.
This was one of the first major models that just said:
I give up, I can't tie this to classical physics in any way, let's just roll with it, OK?
It still treats electrons as little points spinning around the nucleus, but it makes the non-classical postulate that only certain angular momentums (and therefore energies) are allowed.
Bibliography:
- Inward Bound by Abraham Pais (1988) Chapter 9.e Atomic structure and spectral lines - Niels Bohr
- The Quantum Story by Jim Baggott (2011) Chapter 3 A Little Bit of Reality
Bagic jump between orbitals in the Bohr model. Analogous to the later wave function collapse in the Schrödinger equation.
Refinement of the Bohr model that starts to take quantum angular momentum into account in order to explain missing lines that would have been otherwise observed TODO specific example of such line.
They are not observe because they would violate the conservation of angular momentum.
Introduces the azimuthal quantum number and magnetic quantum number.
TODO confirm year and paper, Wikipedia points to: zenodo.org/record/1424309#.yotqe3xmjhe
This technique is crazy! It allows to both:You actually see discrete peaks at different minute counts on the other end.
- separate gaseous mixtures
- identify gaseous compounds
It is based on how much the gas interacts with the column.
Detection is usually done burning the sample to ionize it when it comes out, and then you measure the current produced.
The procedure remind you a bit of gel electrophoresis, except that it is in gaseous phase.
Gas chromatography by Quick Biochemistry Basics (2019)
Source. How I invented the electron capture detector interview with James Lovelock by Web of Stories (2001)
Source. He mentions how scientists had to make their own tools during the 40s/60s. Then how gas chromatography was invented at the National Institute for Medical Research and gained a Nobel Prize. Lovelock came in improving the detection part of things. Tagged
The name makes absolutely no sense in modern terms, as nor colors nor light are used directly in the measurements. It is purely historical.
An ion selective electrode is tool used in analytical chemistry used to determine the concentration of a given ion in a solution.
The method can determine the concentration of one ion even if there are multiple different types of ion in the solution, although in some cases this can alter the results. This is done with the help of a selective membrane that only allows certain ions through.
One cool example application mentioned on LibreTexts[ref] is the measurement of fluorine concentration in water. They explain that fluorine is added to the drinking water supply in some countries to help protect people's teeth, and so you want to be able to measure as part of quality control to make sure it is being added in correct the quantities.
The method requires calibrating with calibrating solutions which takes one hour, but once you are calibrated you just stick the sensor into the analyte and get readings in a minute without any expendables. The membrane seems to be a bit fragile which requires care, but overall it looks like a convenient method.
Ion selective electrode schematic
. Source. Sample calibration curve for an ion selective electrode
. Source. The curve is simple and log linear, so once you have that it is easy to fit new measurements to the curve.Ion selective electrodes Tech Tips by Vernier
. Source. The plump Asian American lady with a PhD explains how to use the thing.
It seems like a proprietary training video given with the product that this Peruvian university decided to upload to YouTube. Heroes.
Using an Ion Selective Electrode by University of Alberta
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6th edition (1956) on the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/discoveryoftheel002045mbp
The Secrets of the Super Elements
. Source. 2019, by the BBC. Official page: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rv9r6.Applications:
- because it has an even number of nucleons it is transparent to NMR, and therefore is useful in solvents for NMR spectroscopy
Cody'sLab had a nice 5 video series on making it at home! But the United States Government asked him to take it down as suggested at Video "What's Been Going On With Cody'sLab? by Cody'sLab (2019)" at youtu.be/x1mv0vwb08Y?t=84.
Here's a copy online as of 2020: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCXB6BdMh9Y
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"Water" is the name for both:
- the chemical compound with chemical formula H2O
- the liquid phase of the chemical substance composed of the above chemical compound
Simplified phase diagram of water
. Source. Note the triple point and critical point visible. Phase diagrams are so cool!
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Ice is the name of one of the solid phases of water.
In informal contexts, it usually refers to the phase of ice observed in atmospheric pressure, Ice Ih.
4 K. Enough for to make "low temperature superconductors" like regular metals superconducting, e.g. the superconducting temperature of aluminum if 1.2 K.
Contrast with liquid nitrogen, which is much cheaper but only goes to 77K.
Surprisingly, it can also become a superfluid even though each atom is a fermion! This is because of Cooper pair formation, just like in superconductors, but the transition happens at lower temperatures than superfluid helium-4, which is a boson.
aps.org/publications/apsnews/202110/history.cfm: October 1972: Publication of Discovery of Superfluid Helium-3 contains comments on the seminal paper and a graph which we must steal.
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Also sometimes called helium II, in contrast to helium I, which is the non-superfluid liquid helium phase.
Superfluid helium Resonance Experiment by Dietterich Labs (2019)
Source. Tagged
Buckyballs (C60) by Periodic Videos (2010)
Source. Actually shows them in a lab!- youtu.be/ljF5QhD5hnI?t=167 has a photo of the first effective production method, which passes a large current between two carbon rods
- youtu.be/ljF5QhD5hnI?t=245 and forward cuts (their editing is very annoying) shows how fullerene dissolves in an organic solvent TODO name, sounds like thodium? and produces a violet solution, while graphite doesn't. A Ultrasonic bath is needed for the solution to form however.
- youtu.be/ljF5QhD5hnI?t=501 fullerene is not a good lubricant despite being a little ball, because it is reactive and polymerises under pressure
The layered one.
A single layer of graphite.
77K. Low enough for "high temperature superconductors" such as yttrium barium copper oxide, but for "low temperature superconductors", you need to go much lower, typically with liquid helium, which is likely much more expensive. TODO by how much?
Where Do You Get Liquid Nitrogen? by The King of Random (2016)
Source. He just goes to a medical gases shop in a local industrial estate and buys 20L for 95 dollars and brings it back on his own Dewar marked 35LD.Making Liquid Nitrogen From Scratch! by Veritasium (2019)
Source. "From scratch" is perhaps a bit clickbaity, but I'll take it. Tagged
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Piezoelectric, and notably used in quartz clock.
Liquid
. Source. The boiling temperature is 85.03 K, so the liquid in this photo is very cold. Tagged
Danger by Bayway Refinery
. Source. TODO year.- youtu.be/GRBTQcrObdk?t=462 scientist exposes a rat to the gas, watches the rat faint, and then revives the rat with manual resuscitation. OMG.
And notably, it is almost all Argon-40, which is stable, but not the most common one to come from natural nucleosynthesis.
An alloy of iron and carbon. Because such allys have had such incredible historical importance due to their different properties, different phases of Fe-C have well known names such as steel
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This is apparently the most important III-V semiconductor, it seems to actually have some applications, see also: gallium arsenide vs silicon.
Trying to use gallium arsenide was Seymour Cray's fatal last flaw as mentioned at The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray by Charles J. Murray (1997).
The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray by Charles J. Murray (1997) page 4 mentions:
Cray wanted his new machine to employ circuits made from a material called gallium arsenide. Gallium arsenide had achieved limited success, particularly in satellite communications and military electronics. But no one had succeeded with it in anything so complicated as a computer. In the computer industry, engineers had developed a saying: "Gallium arsenide is the technology of the future," they would say. "And it always will be."
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Second most important superconducting material: applications of superconductivity.
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Stable isotope.
Highly radioactive isotope of caesium with half-life of 30.17 y. Produced from the nuclear fission of uranium, TODO exact reaction, not found in nature.
The fucked thing about this byproduct is that it is in the same chemical family as sodium, and therefore forms a salt that looks like regular table salt, and dissolves in water and therefore easily enters your body and sticks to things.
Another problem is that its half-life is long enough that it doesn't lose radioactivity very quickly compared to the life of a human person, although it is short enough to make it highly toxic, making it a terrible pollutant when released.
This is why for example in the goiânia accident a girl ended up ingesting Caesium-137 after eating an egg after touching the Caesium with her hands.
caesium-137 decay scheme
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Not "Yt" because that is already "Yttrium". God.
Discovered by Marie Curie, published July 1999.
There are no stable isotopes.
The only isotope found on Earth because it occurs as part of the uranium 238 decay chain, i.e., it is not a primordial nuclide.
Interestingly it is a bit less stable than other isotopesL such as Polonium-208 (3 y) and Polonium-209 (124 y), but those aren't in any Earthly radioactive chain so they don't show up on Earth.
Discovered by Marie Curie when she noticed that there was some yet unknown more radioactive element in their raw samples, after uranium and polonium, which she published 6 months prior, had already been separated. Published on December 1989 as: Section "Sur une nouvelle substance fortement radio-active, contenue dans la pechblende".
The uranium 238 decay chain is the main source of naturally occurring radium.
The epic story of radium by Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (2013)
Source. This isomer has an interest for atomic clocks due to an exceptionally low energy nuclear isomer transition: www.quantamagazine.org/the-first-nuclear-clock-will-test-if-fundamental-constants-change-20240904/
The RaLa Experiment by Our Own Devices
. Source. Has some good mentions of Uranium vs Plutonium in nuclear weapon design.Bibliography:
- Open Q&As:
- Closed Q&As:
Because you can generate plutonium-239 from uranium-238 in a breeder reactor, and then separate the plutonium-239 from the Uranium simply by using chemistry methods because you've created an element with different valence electrons.
Isn't it somewhat funny that it is easier to purify a synthetic element than a naturally occurring one?
This is an important man-made uranium compound as it is used in uranium enrichment.
The main reason for this is that fluorine only has one stable isotope, which allows you to pick up weight differences in uranium isotopes in isolation.
Ball model of uranium hexafluoride
. Source. Hex sublimates at around 56.5 °C at so it can be converted to a gas relatively easily. It is then in its gas form that it is used for uranium enrichment
The Most Dangerous Rock in the World by Welch Labs
. Source. OK, the title is quite minimalistic, he goes on to talk about the full early history of nuclear fission!Produced as part of the thorium fuel cycle.
Glass with Uranium added to it to become fluorescent due to Uranium's chemical properties. This is unrelated to Uranium's nuclear properties.
However it was this fluorescence that led Henri Becquerel to discover radioactivity while studying fluorescence, which led him to have Uranium compounds and photographic material in close proximity. I love science I guess.
What a material:
- only exists in trace amounts in nature,but it can be produced at kilogram scale in breeder reactors
- it is only intentionally produced for one application, and one application only basically: nuclear weapons
Burning and Extinguishing Characteristics of Plutonium Metal Fires by RobPlonski
. Source. Commented by this dude: www.linkedin.com/in/robplonski/ Tagged
Plutonium Metal Preparation by Los Alamos National Laboratory
. Source. Describes conversion from Plutonium nitrate to a plutonium metal slab, which is then sent to final pit.Strong alpha emitter. Can be used as an atomic battery.
Plutonium-238-oxide pellet glowing under its own heat
. Source. Unlike for nuclear applications, we don't need the pure metal, so the oxide 238PuO2 is used instead as it is more chemically stable.Plutonium-240 is a contaminant.
This isotope shows up as an inevitable contaminant in Plutonium-239 for nuclear weapons, because it emits neutrons too fast and makes it harder to assemble the critical mass without fizzle.
It is the presence of this contaminant that made implosion-type fission weapon a necessity: Section "Gun-type fission weapons don't work with plutonium".
Wikipedia explains that Pu-240 is formed by Pu-239 Neutron capture:so its presence is inevitable.
About 62% to 73% of the time when 239Pu captures a neutron, it undergoes fission; the remainder of the time, it forms 240Pu.
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The definition does not include homonuclear molecules which is a pain.
Single chemical element, single phase (usually solid), but different 3D structures.
We define a "sugar" as either of:because these are small carbohydrates, and they taste sweet to humans.
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The most important on in metabolism internals, everything else gets converted to it before being processed in the .
Nutrient that a given species cannot produce and must ingest in its diet.
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en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nutrient&oldid=1075972831#Essential gives somewhat of an overview:
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The FASCINATING 200-Year History of Benzene by Chemistorian
. Source. Interesting history. Notably how things were only finally well settled by X-ray crystallography. Tagged
Active compound in pepper.
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iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bmb.2002.494030030067 Surprises and revelations in biochemistry: 1950-2000 by Perry A. Frey (2006). This should be worth a read.
Ah, this seems like a nice dude.
Fred Sanger 1918-2013 by Birgitta Olofsson (2013)
Source. This is a good video especially is you know Cambridge, to help situate Sanger's places a bit. Good Sanger quote at the end:I always tell people, it is much easier to get the second one than the first
Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane (2006) paints a colorful picture of the man!
They made gunpowder. Then the American Civil War came. Billions, baby.
Military links carried over well into World War II, where e.g. they built the B Reactor.
TODO why can't we produce organic compounds more cheaply by total synthesis than biosynthesis?
Computer Aided Simulation & Design in Chemical Engineering by Chemical Engineering Guy (2016)
Source. Interesting overview of the different types of modelling software used in chemical process design.How to Design a Total Synthesis by Mike Christiansen (2013)
Source. Just a ultra quick hello world with some very basic ideas, but worth watching.Process Simulation Software FREE Download - Aspen Hysys versus DWSim | COCO by Jeferson Costa (2020)
Source. Jeferson, a Brazilian from Petrobras, is the creator of the open source DWSim software, and in this video he gives a quick demo of his software and compares it briefly to aspen HYSYS, which appears to be the golden paid reference implementation.Aspen Hysys Introduction by Emmanuel Oloyede (2016)
Source. Holy crap, the UI is identical to Microsoft Word with that huge top bar!!!First, experiments, please how do you determine it and how it helps predict the future: chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/42066/is-there-a-way-to-experimentally-measure-entropy
No YouTube video? Really?
Only certain battery voltages exist, because this voltage depends intrinsically on the battery's chemical composition.
learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/battery-technologies/all (CC BY-SA) has a very good summary list, reordered from lowest to highest voltage:
| Battery Shape | Chemistry | Nominal Voltage | Rechargeable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA, AAA, C, D (Rechargeable) | NiMH or NiCd | 1.2V | Yes |
| AA, AAA, C, and D | Alkaline or Zinc-carbon | 1.5V | No |
| Coin Cell | Lithium | 3V | No |
| Silver Flat Pack | Lithium Polymer (LiPo) | 3.7V | Yes |
| 9V | Alkaline or Zinc-carbon | 9V | No |
| Car Battery | Six-cell lead acid | 12.6V | Yes |
Bibliography:
- youtu.be/HQ1lrEQsj4c?t=51 shows Fluke 731B Voltage Standard which contains 1.018 values due to Weston cell voltage standard
I can't believe there isn't a YouTube video comparing various substances for each flammability and instability ratings, this would be a huge hit.
Discovering them was not so easy because they don't form chemical compounds. So they exist only as gases. And Helium disperses off into space.
Argon was the first to be found by density considerations because it is so abundant on Earth's atmosphere (~1%): Argon is abundant on Earth's atmosphere because it comes from the decay of Potassium-40.
Then basically all of the others were discovered by spectral lines. Helium notably was first found on the Sun like that, and only later on Earth! Thus its name. Pretty cool.
The Incredible Discovery of the LEAST Reactive Elements by Chemistorian
. Source. 2024. Great video.Lists:
Homepage: www.mysteryofmatter.net
Very good documentary! Explains things very well! Great acting and wardrobe too.
Particularly tasteful is their choice of native speaker actors who speak their native language for less important narration, and English with an accent for more important moments, in particular when talking solo to the camera.
The Mystery of Matter episode 1
. Source. The Mystery of Matter episode 2
. Source. Covers:The Mystery of Matter episode 3
. Source. This is OK, but definitely inferior to The Mystery of Matter overall because it is much more interesting to watch period reenactments than Jim Al-Khalili going places. But the latter also has its value.
- www.reddit.com/r/materials/comments/b7bchl/is_there_any_official_database_for_phase_diagrams/ being under
r/materialsthe answers seem to focus on composition phase diagram rather than temperature-pressure phase diagrams
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