jdurg

It's not mustard gas. Mustard gas is a carbon-sulfur-chlorine compound, I believe.

Correct. The metal is not soluble in water or oils, so it cannot get into the tissues. It's the soluble ionic forms, and the organic forms, that allow the mercury to spread thoughout the body quite easily and cross into the brain tissue and other body tissues.

That was a SEVERE over-reaction to mercury exposure. Wow. Mercury is not nearly as toxic in an elemental form as it is in an organic or ionic form. If you inject elemental mercury into your system, then the big problem is the Hg clogging your veins and arteries. You need repeated, chronic exposure to elemental mercury in order to develop any nasty toxicities from it. If you read about all of the mercury poisonings through time, you'll notice that a teency percentage of them are from the pure metal. It's usually the methyl/dimethyl mercury, mercury nitrates, mercury chlorides, etc. that result in poisoning because those forms of mercury are able to disperse in the body much, much more easily than the metal itself. The metal causes a problem if it seeps into floor boards or carpets and slowly leaches out over time. Mercury metal is a chronic toxic material, not an acutely toxic material.

I'm fine with hydrogen right where it is. As far as scientists can tell, hydrogen is a metallic substance as a solid, though that is still somewhat up for debate. Hydrogen seems to exist more prevalantly, and more stable, as a positively charged species. Therefore, I think it is more like the alkali metals than the halogens. Also, by having hydrogen where it is the periodic table is somewhat symmetrical. Good for those of us who are anal-retentive.

Possible? Yes. Practical? Not a chance. The major plus of the current periodic table is that you are easily able to find the information that you need and make logical assumptions about the properties of the elements.

Uranium metal does not emit neutrons!!!!!!!!!!! Take a look at the forms of decay of uranium. How much of a % does spontaneous fission (The only type of decay that will result in neutron emission) make up? We're talking maybe one or two neutrons per close to a million atoms. Walking outside you are exposed to far more neutrons from cosmic radiation and other sources. U-238 has a half-life that is approximately the age of the earth. (Around 4.5 billion years). So a sample that is 'brand new' and a sample that is ten years old, hell even a sample that is a thousand years old, is not appreciably different. Uranium ores, which the earth is littered with, are far more dangerous than uranium metal? Whay is that? It's because the ores have existed since the creation of the earth and the uranium atoms have had the chance to decay into an equillibrium with their daughter products. Therefore, you get more intense radiation from the radium, protactinium, actinium, polonium, radon, etc. which have built up over time in the ore. I had mentioned somewhere that a one pound sample of pure uranium ore and a one pound brick of refined uranium differ greatly in their radioactivity. The ore is far, far, far more radioactive than the metal because of the daughter products. Also, remember how radioactive atoms decay. There are basically five different methods of decay: 1): Alpha decay where the atom spits out a bare helium nucleus. Easily blocked by a sheet of paper. 2): Beta decay where a neutron splits into a proton and an electron and the electron is fired out of the nucleus. More powerful than alpha decay, but generally blocked by a piece of glass. 3): Gamma rays. This is where a nucleus readjusts itself into a lower energy state. The atom doesn't really decay, per-se, but a metastable isotope will reform into a stable isotope by spitting out a gamma ray. Virtually all forms of radioactive decay result in the emission of a gamma ray due to the adjustment of the nucleus after the initial decay. Quite powerful rays that can penetrate concrete walls. 4): Electron capture where a nucleus absorbs an inner shell electron and combines it with a proton to form a neutron. Many of the lower atomic massed elements do this. 5): Spontaneous fission. This is where a heavy element just splits into two lighter elements and releases a neutron or two. This is very common in the short lived actinides and post actinide elements. For elements like uranium and plutonium, this makes up a very, very, very, very, very fleetingly small percentage of all decay processes. I.E. only one or two atoms out of a few million will decay in this manner. Also, in order to produce neutrons, the alpha particles have to be successfully captured by the Be or Al. This doesn't always happen. There's a lot of 'waste' where the alpha particle just bounces right off of the Be or Al atom. The two items need to be very intimately mixed in order to produce any real quantity of neutrons. For some reason, people seem to think that putting a piece of aluminum within twenty feet of a piece of uranium will result in massive neutron production. Now some people might be wondering why I keep saying that Uranium doesn't produce neutrons even though it's used in an atomic bomb. The Uranium in an atomic bomb is nearly pure U-235. U-235 is more radioactive than U-238 in that its half-life is much shorter. U-235 is also able to be coaxed into breaking apart via fission. If you fire some neutrons into U-235 the atoms will break apart releasing more neutrons and resulting in a chain reaction. Nearly all atomic bombs have a 'triggering' device in the center in which an alpha emitter and beryllium are intimately mixed in order to create a stream of neutrons for the soon to be critical mass of U-235. Even then, however, you still need a large mass of the uranium as the neutron absorption isn't very efficient. To sum up what I've been saying, depleted uranium poses little to no radiation hazard unless you are around unshielded, exposed DU 24/7. Really, the metal is more of a toxicological hazard than a radiation hazard as uranium is a fairly toxic heavy metal. Having piles of the stuff hanging around isn't going to lead to any increase in radioactivity over any timeframe observable to us humans due to the exceedingly long half-life. Your interest/fear about the neutrons is really puzzling to me. It's like being afraid of the arsenic content in a piece of aluminum foil you accidentally swallowed.

Heh. I was going to say a scorned woman or an ex-girlfriend.

Depleted uranium does not emit fast neutrons, hell, it doesn't even emit neutrons. DU is composed of over 99.6% U-238, and spontaneous fission only makes up about 0.000054% of all decays. Therefore, there are more neutrons moving around because of natural radiation in the air as opposed to my few grams of uranium. The only way I would have to be worried about any neutrons is if my uranium was in close proximity to beryllium or aluminum. However, my uranium is in a glass vial which blocks all alpha radiation, and the glass vial is inside a lead sarcophogus type thing which is inside a lead lined box. So I'm not worried in the slightest about radiation. (I have had numerous different types of detectors try and detect any leaking radiation, and there is no increase above background level. With the vial out of the lead, there is a noticeable increase due to gamma rays, but nothing all too spectacular. Now if the vial is opened, then you see some nice levels. hehe).

Here's a good example: We're going to try and balance the reaction between potassium chlorate and hydrochloric acid which gives potassium chloride, water, chlorine dioxide and chlorine gas. KClO3 + HCl --> KCl + H2O + ClO2 + Cl2 Remember, you can always start out by balancing it with fractions as coefficients. Then you can just use some simple mathematics to eliminate the fractions and get a whole number. It's also important to try and see which is the 'key' compound in the reaction. Every reaction has one compound which really controls the progress of the balancing. In this case, it would be KClO3 since it contains K, Cl, and O in its formula. It's only missing the H which is easy to balance since H is only present in the water on the right side. So you'd start out by eliminating pretty much everything but the KClO3. So I would start like this: KClO3 -> ClO2 + KCl With this step the potassium is balanced, but the chlorine is one too many on the right and the oxygen is one two few. So to correct this we will bring in the HCl portion and the water. This gives: KClO3 + HCl -> KCl + H2O + ClO2 Now the potassium is balanced, the oxygen is balanced, and the chlorine is balanced. But the hydrogen is short one on the left side. So we'll add another molecule of HCl to give us: KClO3 + 2HCl -> KCl + H2O + ClO2 Now the potassium is balanced, the hydrogen is balanced, and the oxygen is balanced. Sadly, the chlorine is off with 3 on the left side and only two on the right. So now we'll bring in our final part of this equation which is the chlorine gas. This can be balanced by using a 1/2 coefficient which gives us: KClO3 + 2HCl -> KCl + H2O + ClO2 + (1/2)Cl2 Now everything is balanced. So we just need to multiply every coefficient by two to get a balanced, whole number coefficient for each substance. 2KClO3 + 4HCl --> 2KCl + 2H2O + 2ClO2 + Cl2 It is now balanced.

What I tend to do is split the entire reaction into tiny little reactions. I'll look at each side and try and figure out what the 'easiest' 'small reaction' would be to balance. This is a reaction where the balancing of one element is accomplished by addition of a simply binary compound or pure element. Generally, anything with a hydrogen in it can be balanced fairly easy as you just add an H+ to one side, or H2O if the overall equation is neutral. Knowing the oxidation states of the elements involved in the reaction will also help out tremendously as you'll be able to easily balance the oxidation numbers. Once you have the 'main' reaction balanced, you slowly add back in the other reactants/products and balance those out.

Your father is a very fortuneate individual then. There is absolutely no argument about it; mixing chlorine bleach and aqueous ammonia results in the formation of very deadly chloramine gases. A quick search on google will probably bring up numerous examples of janitors or little old ladies who mixed the two things together in order to clean a bathroom and wound up getting seriously ill and/or passing away from the gas that is formed. Here in Connecticut there was a story about this a few years ago where a janitor at a school accidentally mixed large quantities of bleach and ammonia. I can't imagine the time he spent in the emergency room was a good one.

Nope. You need about 20 kg or so of highly enriched Uranium (I.E. 95+% U-235) in order to have a nuclear bomb. No way in hell you could accomplish that with the miniscule amounts of uranium contained within living creatures.

"Teratogens" has always sounded pretty cool to me.

The James Bond Film "The World Is Not Enough". They all walk around holding massive quantities of plutonium in their hands claiming that 'it's safe and that the tritium is a far worse danger'. Meanwhile, the final battle takes place inside of a running nuclear reactor. I can suspend belief for a brief moment, but that's just freaking ridiculous.

Lye does NOT equal ammonia solution and bleach. Don't EVER mix those chemicals. You'll wind up evolving very toxic and very nasty chloramine gases which can cause severe lung damage and even death. Lye is just the common name for the chemical sodium hydroxide. Kind of like how muriatic acid is the common name for hydrochloric acid and oil of vitriol is the common name for sulfuric acid. Just don't ever mix chlorine bleach and ammonia when trying to clean something. Far too many people have died while making that mistake.

I know what you mean about the lanthanides. It's kind of frustrating, but it's also neat seeing the colors. My La is a nice deep blue, while the Ce and Pr are nice and green. The neodymium looks kind of icky, but if I ever want to see the metal, I just need to scratch the surface a bit. Sodium does remain fairly nice under standard oils. It gets a gray oxidation coating on it, but nothing too severe. Potassium is a pain in the arse, however. My K is heavily oxidize with lots of white globs and the pure metal barely showing through. There is no discoloration to the K, so if I wanted to I could probably remove the rind and expose the fresh metal as the superoxides and peroxides aren't present, but I'm just going to play it safe and let it sit there. If I get really concerned, I could remove the rind then use an air-tight sealent to seal the jar shut.

lithium is just as big a fire hazard as sodium and potassium metal are. What happens if moisture or oxygen gets into the container and the lithium begins to react? Is it really such a good idea to keep a sealed container of a highly volatile, flammable organic liquid with a highly reactive, caustic alkali metal in there?

Correct. In fact, because the density of helium is so small, sound travels less efficiently through helium and does not appear to be as 'loud'. Popping a ballon in an atmosphere of helium sounds a lot quieter than popping a balloon in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide.

I've always likened infinity to a fast moving object. It exists, but in order to do something with it you have to stop it. When it stops, however, it's no longer infinity.

I'm a fairly avid golfer, and one thing that myself and other golfers try to attain is a muscle memory of our swing. This is done by swining properly over and over and over again until you are able to do so without thinking about it. My question is, what is muscle memory? Is it a physiological change in the muscles or is it a psychological change? When I swing a club, it just feels 'right' when I swing it like I should. I can tell right away if my swing is bad or if my swing is good as soon as I start my downswing. The thing is, I'm not conciously thinking about the swing. I've just always wondered how and why the body is able to do this.

Also, mutations caused by radiation damage generally will not show up until the following generation. I.E. your kids will be fine, but your grandchildren may start showing problems.

I'll warn you, however, that the lithium will still float on the oil and a par tof it will be above the surface of the oil and still oxidize. It floats kind of like an iceberg floats in water. Most of it is under the surface, but enough stays above the surface to corrode and oxidize.

U-238 does not absorb alpha particles. U-238 can absorb neutrons if they are slowed down enough to form Np-239 which decays into Pu-239. The thing is, if you have a billion atoms of U-238 and a billion slow moving neutrons, you'll still only get a small percentage that absorb and eventually turn into plutonium. I have a few grams of depleted uranium right next to me, and the level of activity of these little shavings is as constant as it will ever be. In addition, depleted uranium is refined uranium. The dangerous daughter products of radium, protactinium, polonium, etc. simply don't exist because they were removed during the purification of the pure metal. A one pound lump of pure uranium ore is far more radioactive than a one pound lump of pure uranium metal. Again, this is because the ore has all of the daughter products which have built up over time. Since U-238, and christ even U-235, have such a long half-life, purified uranium metal just simply will not contain a large amount of the far more radioactive daughter products.

I'm having a great deal of trouble understanding if his post is complete and utter sarcasm, his believed facts, or a combination of the two?

There is no such thing as an inorganic alcohol. Alcohols are hydrocarbon based molecules with a single -OH functional group. Isopropanol is an organic compound. It's formula is H3C-CH(-OH)-CH3. For a compound to be an 'inorganic alcohol', it would have to be a non hydrocarbon base chain with an OH group. Those are known as bases. (NaOH, KOH, Ba(OH)2, etc.)