Summary
This chapter begins with the drastic measures scientists have to take in order to make discoveries. Some explorers were intrigued about learning about the south pole. After Robert Falcon Scott’s failure to venture into the South Pole, he described the place as “awful”. Wanting to go back, but storms prevented them from doing so. Their fuel was running low, and soon after, he and his tripulation died. Tin was the element to blame in this horrible incident since at cold temperatures a white rust would form, weakening and destroying tin. It shifts from a weak crystal to a strong crystal.
When matter shifts from one state to the other, many dramatic reactions can occur. There are more states of matter other than gas, liquid and solid such as plasma or degenerate matter. This variety is due to the micro arrangements of particles. Neil Bartlett created the first Noble Gas compound in which at very compacted forms, they can eventually connect with other elements. Argon was the one element compounded into a solid. The three main states of matter connect nicely with each other, but when the element is heated and creates plasma, then the particles begin to disintegrate. When particles are cooled down to extreme temperatures, then they combine. In superconductors the electrons and the nuclei are closer, “lock”.
Though many thought that light behaved as a wave, Einstein proved and supported the fact that light came in particles called photons. Some lasers are very powerful, even producing more power than a whole country. This is due to the movement of the electrons. Physicists, like Bohr, using quantum mechanics derived the uncertainty principle to determine a particle’s position. Satyendra Nath Bose, a physicist, noticed that by a mathematical error he had committed, the predictions about particles were right. Einstein took a look at this, agreed and released two papers on how the photons will sometimes get on top of each other and become indistinguishable, and how in very extreme low temperatures, there could be another state of matter. The uncertainty of where particles are found is very large, sometimes at the point in which two close atoms at low temperatures can create a huge atom.
Reflection
What makes me like chemistry, as mentioned in this chapter, is the fact that there is always going to be something to discover about the world. Other discoveries like the geographical about the South Pole, was a very funny part of the book as it mentions how an individual determined and expecting triumph failed as a Norwegian man won his triumph. Due to the states of matter explained in this chapter, I now know the state of matter of Jell-O. It can be considered a very sluggish liquid, and a vary soft solid. There is an ice called”Alien Ice” that does not melt until a very high temperature. Me being an ice cream fanatic wish there was an ice cream that hardly melts. A connection that I noticed in this chapter is how when maintained at nice cool temperatures, the superconductor can flow for a long time. This explains why many technological artifacts have fans integrated; to keep them cool. It was interesting to read how some elements can mess up with light, sometimes even making it slower, like Sodium. I was shocked to learn that light is not the fastest thing in the universe, only the fastest in a vacuum. This chapter maybe without knowing goes back to one of the past chapters where a mistake sometimes can be very helpful, specially when Bose made a wrong calculation with correct results.
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