Fun Facts We Didn't Need To Know

[gwand]

It is the most abundant element in the universe. It will soon fuel most of our automobiles.

 

[Essjay]

Just checked, yes hydrogen is still a non-metal. But there is now another category since I did my degree - metalloid. These straddle the line between metals and non-metals in the periodic table - boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony, tellurium, polonium and astatine.

 

[gwand]

Just checked, yes hydrogen is still a non-metal. But there is now another category since I did my degree - metalloid. These straddle the line between metals and non-metals in the periodic table - boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony, tellurium, polonium and astatine.

There is yet another category - Metal Head

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Hydrogen is (or was when I was at university) classed as a non-metal.

Well, that's why I teach music instead of chemistry! ha ha

 

[jaylach]

Well, that's why I teach music instead of chemistry! ha ha

While a non-metal hydrogen DOES have some characteristics if an alkali metal. Hydrogen can behave as a metal when it becomes a solid under extremely high pressure and other favorable conditions. In the solid or metallic phase, hydrogen acts as an electrical conductor. Still, it is considered a non-metal.

 

[Essjay]

Things do different things when subjected to high or low pressure and temperature. That's why we used the phrase "STP" - standard temperature and pressure - 25 deg C and 760 mm mercury for behaviour under 'normal' conditions.

 

[JackGulley]

The Latin word “canis/canem” (from whence we get “canine”) is cognate (descended from the same root) with English “hound”.

 

[Naughts]

A quarter of 18-34 year olds have never answered their phone. Instead, they simply ignore it when it rings and opt to text a friend or family member, rather than calling them back.

 

[Ichthys]

The speed of light is not constant. It travels at different speeds depending on what it's traveling through. It's fastest speed is 186,000 miles per second, when it's traveling through a vacuum. It slows down to travel through air, and glass, etc.

(Speaking of metals), sodium is a metal with the consistency of soft cheese at room temperature.

It reacts violently with oxygen so has to be kept covered in oil.

At temperatures approaching absolute zero it is almost transparent. At these temperatures, the speed of light passing through it is less than 30mph.

 

[Magnum Man]

I remember in chemistry in high school, the teacher took a pea sized piece, and dropped it in a beaker of water… lots of little explosions, made the lil piece of sodium hop around the top of the beaker, until it had fully dissolved into the water

 

[Essjay]

To use sodium, we had to rinse it in pet. ether to remove the oil, then cut it up with a spatula. I used it for making sodium amalgam, safer than using sodium metal.

The technician responsible for the organic teaching lab used to tell each new batch of undergraduates cautionary tales. One was about a female student with very long finger nails. She used these to pick out sodium from the jar and got a piece caught under her finger nail. When she washed her hands, the sodium reacted instantly with the water and it removed the entire nail.

Then there was the student who broke a thermometer. Rather than put it in the glass bucket he left it on the bench. Later he wiped the bench with a cloth in big circular movements - and caught the broken edge up his sleeve and ripped his arm open.

We did suspect these tales were exaggerated for effect

 

[Ichthys]

Our chemistry teacher didn't turn up for the (double) lesson one day. Someone came to let us into the lab, but the teacher still didn't appear. So, being very responsible 15 year olds, we soon got bored of burning things on the Bunsen burners and putting ink cartridges in jars of acid.
The chemistry lab was just off the balcony that ran down the side of the school swimming pool. You can probably guess the rest. The sodium gave off little underwater explosions as it sank. The phosphorus was even better, and never reached the bottom.

The consequences of our stupidity, however, did reach the bottom, 6 times for each of us. And our parents had to pay for the damage.

 

[gwand]

I took high school physics in 1969. My teacher held a PhD in physics and had worked on the Manhattan Project during WWII. What she was doing in a rural high school is another story. In any case she was the archetypal absent minded professor. One day she was teaching a lesson on centripetal force and was swinging a 2 inch steel ball in circles around her head. Well while talking about centripetal forces she forgot she was swinging the ball and the ball swung around and hit her square on the head. She went to ground like a sack of potatoes. She was quite disoriented for a few seconds but came to normal self within minutes. No damage done. The class was stunned and rushed to help her. But it was quite the slap stick scenario.