Element collecting

[Lance]

Hey, that's the guy with the crazy radium watch hand I saw on eBay some time ago. Seems like no one hasn't bought it yet. With 60 000 CPM counts, I can't think of a person who would voluntarily have it around... except for me.

 

Oh yea I saw that. I was shocked and was thinking that maybe that’s just a guess or he measured it wrong.

 

He also has some mercury switches I was thinking about buying.

 

Edit: doh, they already ended. I bet he will relist them.

[Gilded]

Let's see here... A gram of radium-226 (which is the isotope used in clock painting) undergoes about 37 billion disintegrations / second. Yipes. Btw, a "curie", and old unit, is defined as the amount of disintegrations that happens in a gram of Ra-226. Now I can imagine why Marie Curie got cancer.

[YT2095]

I`m sure it would be easy enough to get some roofing lead and solder it together into a box, within which you could store this radium quite safely

[cashsphere]

Just wondering how to collect different isotopes of elements does the element look different or just a different density?

 

Also those sites selling atoms of radioactive elements dont seem to exist anymore.

[YT2095]

different atomic mass, but chemicaly identical

[Gilded]

"Just wondering how to collect different isotopes of elements does the element look different or just a different density?"

 

Very, very minimal differences. And I don't think you can see any visual differences. For example, nickel, has 5 isotopes that occur in nature, and you certainly can't tell which is which just by looking at them. This is the reason uranium-235 is so hard to isolate from the 238 isotope.

 

"Also those sites selling atoms of radioactive elements dont seem to exist anymore."

 

Yeah, it seems http://www.elemente.at.cx is no longer functional. Pretty reasonable prices they had... curium would have been nice too. :>

[Lance]

I got my 100 grams of mercury in the mail yesterday. It’s really amazing how heavy it is. Probably one of my favorite samples so far.

[YT2095]

Lance, get and Iron nail or gold ring and rest it on the surface, that`s REALLY freaky to see )

 

I know the reasoning behind it as I`m sure we all do, but actualy seeing it is amazing

[swansont]

different atomic mass, but chemicaly identical

 

Almost identical. There are some reaction rates that depend weakly on mass, and thus vary slightly for different isotopes.

[jdurg]

When I got my nickel cube in the mail the other day it kind of shocked me how heavy that was. Nickel is pretty dense, but you never can realize that until you hold a big block of it. It's always fun getting elements in the mail. Over the past few weeks, I've really increased the amount of platinum and gold I have, and I have to say that gold is amazingly dense. I have a small vial about half full of various 24karat gold coins, ingots, and nuggets. It is simply remarkable just how heavy the vial is. The same can be said for hafnium, tantalum, tungsten, rhenium, and in particular osmium and iridium.

[jdurg]

I got my 100 grams of mercury in the mail yesterday. It’s really amazing how heavy it is. Probably one of my favorite samples so far.

 

It is remarkably dense. It also sounds amazing when it's sloshing around inside it's container. I too was floored by it when I bought a pound of it a while back. I was amazed, and intrigued, at how a pound of mercury only took up about 33 mL!

[jdurg]

Lance' date=' get and Iron nail or gold ring and rest it on the surface, that`s REALLY freaky to see )

 

I know the reasoning behind it as I`m sure we all do, but actualy seeing it is amazing [/quote']

 

 

Try the same thing with a block of aluminum. THAT is freaky and cool. (And less expensive than a gold ring. )

[jdurg]

If you want to get some nice, cheap 24 karat gold, take a look at the items for sale by auctionmaster45 on E-Bay. He ships out of Brooklyn, NY and constantly has Dutch Auctions for nice gold bars. I just picked up a couple of 2.0 gram gold bars for only 15.00 each. That's BELOW the spot price of gold!

[Gilded]

Talking of mercury, if you have some extra (which is usually the case if you buy in bulk quantities) and you're feeling silly enough, why not make some mercury fulminate.

[jdurg]

Talking of mercury, if you have some extra (which is usually the case if you buy in bulk quantities) and you're feeling silly enough, why not make some mercury fulminate.

 

 

Heh. Because I like having two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes, and erm........... another special appendage.

[Lance]

If you want to get some nice, cheap 24 karat gold, take a look at the items for sale by auctionmaster45 on E-Bay. He ships out of Brooklyn, NY and constantly has Dutch Auctions for nice gold bars. I just picked up a couple of 2.0 gram gold bars for only 15.00 each. That's BELOW the spot price of gold!

 

I saw his auctions a while ago. Have you got your gold yet? His feedback makes me nervous.

[cashsphere]

Well from the looks of it you will probably have to wait at least 1 month for the gold and I wonder if its really 24k? If you actually get 24k gold Ill buy from auctionmaster45.

[jdurg]

The feedback made me a bit nervous, but there was some valid explanations. Apparently the seller is a she, and not a he, and had recently given birth. While looking at the feedback prior to the supposed birth date, it all looks pretty good. The feedback complaining about the quality of the gold came from buyers with relatively little feedback. It will also be pretty easy to tell if its real 24 karat gold based upon the density. So there are plenty of ways to assure that it's real. One thing I will have to mention is that the shipping prices are exorbinantly high. That's unfortuneate, but if you're buying a large number of bars then it can make it not so bad. (Since the combined shipping on my two bars was only a dollar or so more than the regular shipping). So once the bars arrive, I'll let you guys know how real they are and how the transaction went.

[Gilded]

"Heh. Because I like having two arms, two legs, ten fingers, ten toes, and erm........... another special appendage."

 

Yeah, I'd like to keep my... nose too.

 

"It will also be pretty easy to tell if its real 24 karat gold based upon the density."

 

Not really, it could just be a block of tungsten plated with gold. Of course, bending the metal is something you might want to try to test if it's solid gold, just don't bend it too much. And if nothing else works, sneak into your local university and use their mass spectrometer. :>

[jdurg]

A mass spectrometer would be pretty useless. A Flame Atomic Absorption machine would be much better. As for the tungsten possibility, it would cost someone far more money than they are currently making to get small bars of tungsten and have them gold plated. So it's very safe to say that it won't be tungsten.

[Lance]

If it was plated you could just scrape the coating off with a nail.

[YT2095]

weight vs displacement would easily establish it was a fake, without having to leave a mark on it

[jdurg]

weight vs displacement would easily establish it was a fake, without having to leave a mark on it

 

Exactly. That's why with the weight of the bars pre-determined, I'll be able to do some measurements to determine if the density is that of gold or some other alloy. Also, with the bars being pretty small, if I can bend one of them without much effort, than it would have to be gold. (Since any other bar which could be bent at that small of a size would have to be some incredibly light metal compared to gold).

[YT2095]

put the gold in a graduated vessel with a known quantity of water in it, work out how much the water rises (that give you it`s volume by displacement).

 

now weigh the gold and obtain that value.

 

using both of these you can work out it`s purity, as gold has a given weight per CM^3

 

nothing has to bent or distorted, laser ablated or fried

[Gilded]

"using both of these you can work out it`s purity, as gold has a given weight per CM^3"

 

Are you aware that both gold and tungsten have 19.3g/cm^3 theoretical density?