My Colorful Cupboard

So, I was checking out what's around. This is what I found.

Red: I have tomatoes, beets, red peppers.

Orange: Apricots, carrots, orange peppers, peaches

Yellow: Summer squash, turmeric

Green: Green peppers, cabbage, green & black tea, rosemary, mint, thyme, sage, collard greens, basil, carrot greens

White: Onions, garlic, mushrooms, white corn, potatoes

Blue: Blueberries, of course!

Luminescence

I had no idea that there were so many causes of luminescence. I figured it was some chemical reaction which caused it. It seems that there are quite a few causes, some chemical, some mechanical (imagine that!) and some just 'cause they wanna.

Fluorescence and Photoluminescence are luminescence where the energy is supplied by electromagnetic radiation.

Chemiluminescence is luminescence where the energy is supplied by chemical reactions. This one I knew about already.

Bioluminescence is luminescence caused by chemical reactions in living things; it is a form of chemiluminescence

Electroluminescence is luminescence caused by electric current.

Cathodoluminescence is electroluminescence caused by electron beams.

Radioluminescence is luminescence caused by nuclear radiation.

Phosphorescence is delayed luminescence or "afterglow".
Triboluminescence is phosphorescence that is triggered by mechanical action or electroluminescence excited by electricity generated by mechanical action.

Thermoluminescence is phosphorescence triggered by temperatures above a certain point. Optically stimulated luminescence is phosphorescence triggered by visible light or infrared.

Now I know all these causes of luminescence. Hooray!

Beryllium Sphere Activate!

I chose beryllium because it is an important story component in one of my favorite movies. In Galaxy Quest the crew goes in search of a beryllium sphere in order to replace the one they broke, crucial because of its function in their propulsion system. I've now demonstrated that I am a big geek, and yes, I like Star Trek too.

Beryllium is the chemical element that has the symbol Be and atomic number 4. Elemental beryllium is a steel grey, strong, light-weight yet brittle, alkaline earth metal. It is primarily used as a hardening agent in alloys. It has the highest melting point of the light metals. Precious forms of beryl are aquamarine and emerald. Beryllium and its salts are toxic substances and potentially carcinogenic.

Alchemy, yearning

Science? Magic? Art? Yes. Everything I've looked at has pointed to all three, and of course the important aspect of yearning. Science can tell us how and help us reproduce the magic that naturally occurs in our world and our ability to create and identify art is what makes us notice to begin with. But why? Why do these things happen to begin with, these reactions happen? That's yearning. That is why, we know how, and when we don't we use all our science and the art of our minds to imagine what it is and how it is. Why are these elements predisposed to act as they do? They yearn to be more than what they are. They yearn to be something different, something new. I can't say I've ever met anyone who was any different.

TOYS

It's so funny to me that while I am reading about these toys and concepts, I find that the more they explain, the less I feel I know. Like the floating ball. When I started to read the page, I totally got it. Then they compared it to sailing or flying. That, too, made so much sense. I've always thought of air and wind as a physical mass. I can feel it as I move, I see it lift and change direction and carry with it dust and debris. I can see it fill a sail and feel it push against me when I'm riding my bike. All these things I know. Of course, when they started explaining lift and drag, angles and measurements . . . . I started to feel like I was losing my grasp. Of course, taking a moment to consider it all, I completely understood what was being explained. Maybe it was the language that made me feel like the information was beyond me, or maybe I found it overwhelming. Who knows. I did leave the page understanding why a ball will twist into the air stream continuously and balance. That was good.

Iodine, my halogen of choice

I chose iodine because it was the halogen I'm most familiar with. I suppose I could have chosen the one I was least familiar with to learn new things, but I thought that increasing my knowledge about something that I know only a little about.

Iodine is a chemical element that has the symbol I and atomic number 53. Chemically, iodine is the least reactive of the halogens, and the most electropositive halogen after astatine. Iodine is primarily used in medicine, photography and dyes. It is required in trace amounts by most living organisms.

Iodine naturally occurs in the environment chiefly as dissolved iodide in seawater, although it is also found in some minerals and soils. Although the element is actually quite rare, kelp and certain other plants have the ability to concentrate iodine, which helps introduce the element into the food chain as well as keeping its cost down.

Iodine is used in pharmaceuticals, antiseptics, medicine, food supplements, dyes, catalysts, halogen lights, photography and water purifying.

In areas where there is little iodine in the diet—typically remote inland areas and semi-arid equatorial climates where no marine foods are eaten—iodine deficiency gives rise to hypothyroidism, symptoms of which are extreme fatigue, goitre, mental slowing, depression, weight gain, and low basal body temperatures. Iodine deficiency is also the leading cause of preventable mental retardation, an effect which happens primarily when babies and small children are made hypothyroid by lack of the element. The addition of iodine to table salt has largely eliminated this problem in the wealthier nations, but iodine deficiency remains a serious public health problem in the developing world.

A mole?

The mole is the amount of substance of a system which contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilograms of carbon 12.

Hmmmmmmmmm I read the article, I think. Then I read it again. It seems that they spent a lot of time trying to spell it out, but I must not know that alphabet because it didn't make a lot of sense to me. Darn it all . . . that's what happens when I miss out on class discussion. All these concepts and new terms don't make sense unless I can hear it, hear it in a different way, and then hear it again.

Avogadro's Hypothesis

Sad . . . I tried taking all the little quizzes and none of them worked. It was an interesting article, and it seems like you hear that story over and over. Brilliance, incredible brilliance that is misunderstood and ignored until many years later. Born before their time, that's what my Grandpa would say. After reading the article, I think I understood the gist, but deep understanding eludes me.

Helium, oh noble helium

This image of the active Sun was made using ultraviolet light emitted by ionized Helium atoms in the Solar chromosphere. Helium was first discovered in the Sun in 1868, its name fittingly derived from from the Greek word Helios, meaning Sun.

Out of the inert gases, I chose Helium because . . . because it's funnier than the other. Wikipedia says that helium and neon are the only true elemental inert gases, because they do not form any (known) true chemical compounds. That's very interesting. That means that helium is always helium, and neon is always neon. Helium is the second most abundant and second lightest element in the Universe and was one of the elements created in the Big Bang. In the modern Universe almost all new helium is created as a result of the nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars. Because helium alone is less dense than atmospheric air, it will change the timbre (not pitch) of a person's voice when inhaled. However, inhaling it from a typical commercial source, such as that used to fill balloons, can be dangerous due to the number of contaminants that may be present. These could include trace amount of other gases, in addition to aerosolized lubricating oil. I wonder how many contaminants I've inhaled . . . lots, I'm sure.