The Disappearing Spoon Ch. 17

Summary

Donald Glaser, at a bar, thinking about particles due to a glass of beer. He noticed the bubbles on his drink and after much thinking he realized that he could distinguish particle traits based on bubbles that formed at or near boiling points. He first tried his experiments with beer, but of course, were a total failure, then, followed a suggestion of a colleague of using Hydrogen, which made him one of the Men of the Year and made him win a Nobel Prize.

Calcium is capable of forming foaming bubbles as well. Calcium is a very strong element used in many things for protection. Bubbles at some point were not very used by scientists. This was so until Ernest Rutherford and Lord Kelvin came along. Rutherford, expanding on Curie’s work, accelerated the process of getting radioactive material by enclosing the active sample of decay and drawing bubbles of it. These new bubbles are now known as the element Radon.

Suddenly, an element under certain conditions could turn into another element. While making an experiment and putting radon into a container which was inside of a container, after getting to the second container and putting electrical current, it glowed because of the excited Helium molecules. This experiment and discovery was used to find the age of earth by measuring the rate of lost heat and “extrapolating” to when rocks were molten. John Archibald Wheeler, then began to theorize the origin of eath, of life. He began to hypothesize that existence originated from foam, and it did answer many questions, but the origin, it did not explain. Kelvin’s experiments on bubbles, inspired many military science during the first world war. The bubbles that attacked other weapons in war. When studying the bioluminescence of bubbles, scientist Putterman and other scientists discovered that the lack of reactivity of noble gases was the key to sonoluminescence once again going back to fusion. Bubbles have been a great passage way for many scientific discoveries.

Reflection

The chapter begins with some upsetting but brilliant discovery. Upsetting, because it was over a glass of beer. Brilliant because it led to his discovery of how he could distinguish particle traits. The bubbles are now also used for biology. The combination and reaction of slightly basic Calcium and slightly acidic rain, formed what we now know as caves. A funny part about the chapter was when they mentioned how Rutherford would “damn” his equipment and used not very proper language when his equipment would not work. I found it amazing at the process and understanding of how to estimate the age of earth, which based on the experiment came out to be two billion years old. The way this chapter gives importance to bubbles is amazing. One as a kid would play with them, and now one learns that they are far more than just bubbles, and that they could bring up more information of scientific knowledge ever imagined.