Tag: chemistry

Posted in Life & Happiness

Best Friend

Posted on by Jinavie

Whether we’d admit it or not, we all have someone in our lives that we consider a best friend. A best friend is someone who you enjoy spending time with, trust with your deepest secrets and talk openly and honestly with when something is troubling you.

For some, this may be a childhood friend with whom they had endured the hardships of life together. For others, it may be their parents, sibling or significant other. In some cases, a person who was a stranger to you less than a year ago may quickly develop in to your most valuable friend. Many of us will even have multiple “best friends” who we can call upon in times of need, or if we just need to rant over a drink.

These friendships do not happen without effort. Sure, it requires basic chemistry and connection. But to build a great friendship, it requires both parties to invest time, care and empathy. Loyalty is built on acts of kindness. You need to actively listen to delve deeper into the emotions and thoughts that drive your friend’s worries. We improve each other over time by calling out bad behaviours, while offering endless support and love when the other person feels worthless or unattractive. We take for granted the sheer amount of emotional energy invested in cultivating a true friendship.

When we forget this fact, we become terrible friends. We can be selfish, becoming angry with our friend that they aren’t giving us the support that we need. If this ever happens, consider the fact that your friend is also human and that they might be in exactly the same position as you. To parody John F. Kennedy:

“Ask not what your friend can do for you – ask what you can do for your friend”.

There is also one other friendship we must discuss – the friendship between you and yourself. This sounds strange, but you should be your own best friend. You are the person that has truly lived your life with you. You know of all the dramas, thoughts and feelings you have experienced. Yet when we are in a time of need, we neglect to support ourselves as a friend. Instead of support and love, we criticise ourselves, neglect ourselves and drive ourselves to stress and fatigue.

Be generous with your kindness to yourself and don’t forget to treat yourself. If you are having a bad day, take a break so that you can be there for yourself. Watch a movie, go for a walk, introspect and have a deep and meaningful chat with yourself. If you feel like a failure, remind yourself that you are being stupid and remind yourself of how amazing you are.

No matter how many great friends we have, we cannot truly be happy if we treat ourselves like an enemy.

Posted in Science & Nature

Dust Explosion

Posted on by Jinavie

When we hear explosives, we commonly think of chemicals such as nitroglycerin or gunpowder. But an explosion is essentially just a rapid release of energy and expansion of gases due to combustion. This means that if something is combustible – that is, it can burn – it has the ability to explode. However, certain conditions have to be met so that the combustion can be sudden and rapid.

Because of this principle, it is possible to explode dust or other powdered substances. If the dust is combustible (such as flour or coal), suspended in the air at enough concentration in a confined space, with sufficient oxygen and an ignition source, a dust explosion can occur. For example, coal dust explosions are a common threat to miners and there have been countless incidents where mills and factories have exploded with great fury due to a dust cloud forming from grain, flour, powdered milk and sawdust etcetera.

The reason why dust will explode in such a condition but not when it a pile of dust is lit with fire is that in a dust cloud, every dust particle is in contact with air. This massively increases the surface area of the dust relative to its mass, meaning there more reactions can occur. In this case, the reaction is oxidisation of the substance, leading to combustion. This is why the finer the dust or powder, the greater the risk of an explosion. Even substances such as wood or aluminium can create an explosion when finely powdered enough.

The greatest casualty due to a dust explosion was in 1942 when a coal dust explosion in a Chinese mine killed 1549 miners. Another famous case was in 1878 when the Washburn “A” Mill in Minneapolis exploded, leading to the destruction of the world’s largest grain mill and five other mills. This reduced the city’s grain production to almost one-half.

Posted in Science & Nature

Milk Tea

Posted on by Jinavie

In many cultures, it is normal to drink black tea with milk (and sugar, depending on preference). The milk neutralises the acidity of tea and softens the bitterness of tannins, making the tea more palatable and easier on the stomach. This is especially for strong teas such as Assam tea. However, the downside is that there is some evidence that adding milk to tea reduces the beneficial effects from drinking tea, such as relaxing blood vessels and reducing risk of heart disease.

One of the timeless debates is whether to pour the tea or milk first when mixing the two. It is such a bitter topic that there are even recordings in literature of people using the phrase “rather milk in first” as an insult to another person.

George Orwell once published an article on making a perfect cup of tea and he claimed that adding milk to tea allowed you to regulate the amount of milk as you stir. Tea-first advocates also insist that pouring the tea first allows for more brewing time and increases the flavour of the tea.

The reason for milk-first is more scientific. In the early days of tea-drinking, most households did not own high-quality porcelain teacups. Cheap porcelain teacups were too thin to withstand the hot temperature of fresh tea and would crack. Pouring milk first cooled the tea and stopped this from happening. Therefore, pouring tea first was seen as a show of social status as you could afford high-quality teacups. The other main rationale for adding milk first is that the hot tea denatures proteins in milk, which can reduce the flavour and creamy texture of the milk.

To settle this old argument, British chemist Dr Andrew Stapley of the Royal Society of Chemistry undertook experiments to determine which is better from a scientific point of view. He concluded that it is indeed better to pour milk first then add tea. The reasoning is that when you add milk to tea, individual drops contact the tea and increases the surface area exposed to hot tea, denaturing more proteins. Ergo, adding tea to milk reduces this process and provides for a richer, creamier flavour.

At the end of the day, it really is just a cup of tea and you should drink it in whatever way you desire.

Posted in Science & Nature

Tea

Posted on by Jinavie

Among the many hot beverages the world enjoys, tea is probably the number one. No matter how many people drink coffee, no beverage has a history like tea. From the tea ceremony cultures of the East to the Boston Tea Party of the West, the history of tea is long and full of stories. As everyone knows, tea is a drink made by boiling down the leaves of a plant. There are many types of tea: black, oolong, green, yellow and white being the most common. Teas made from more aromatic plants such as jasmine and chamomile are typically put in a separate category known as herbal teas. One surprising fact about tea is that most of them are derived from the same plant.

The plant Camellia sinensis is the source of all teas, with the aforementioned black, oolong, green, yellow and white teas all coming from the leaves of this one plant. However, what makes each tea unique is the way the leaves are processed. For example, if you steam freshly picked leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant then dry them out, you make green tea. If you wither the leaves then lightly crush and bruise them to promote oxidisation, you make black tea. The different ways of processing tea leaves gives each type of tea a unique flavour due to a variety in the ratio of various chemicals. For example, black tea is rich in tannin because of oxidisation, whereas green and oolong teas are milder as they have higher levels of catechins than tannin (the oxidised product of catechin). As catechins act as antioxidants in the human body, green tea is effective in slowing the aging process.

Although the source of the leaves are the same, the different ways of processing makes each tea unique in their ways of preparation. The milder white, yellow and green teas are best prepared by steeping them in water heated to (or cooled from boiling) 70~80°C for 1~2 minutes, while oolong and black tea should be steeped for 2~3 minutes in near-boiling water (80~99°C) for the best taste.

Posted in Science & Nature

Dihydrogen Monoxide

Posted on by Jinavie

Many people know about the dangers of chemicals such as lead and dioxin, but there is lack of awareness of an even bigger killed chemical: dihydrogen monoxide. It is a colourless, odourless, tasteless chemical that is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Most deaths caused by dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) are by accidental inhalation, causing cerebral hypoxia. However, the dangers of DHMO do not end there. Its solid form can cause severe tissue damage after prolonged exposure, and both its gas and liquid forms can cause severe burns. It is possible to overdose on DHMO, with symptoms ranging from excessive diaphoresis and micturition, bloating, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance such as hyponatraemia. For those who are dependent on it, withdrawal means certain death. DHMO has also been found in various types of tumours biopsied from terminal cancer patients.

Not only does DHMO have consequences on human health, it is also damaging for the environment. DHMO is the leading cause of the greenhouse effect (surpassing carbon dioxide), a key component of acid rain, accelerated corrosion and rusting of many metals and contributes to the erosion of natural landscapes. DHMO contamination is a real, global issue, with DHMO being detected in lakes, streams and reservoirs across the globe. DHMO has caused trillions of dollars of property damage in almost every country, especially in developing nations.

Despite the danger, DHMO is commonly found in the household, in the form of additives in food and drinks, cleaning products and even styrofoam. There are no regulation laws for DHMO and multi-national companies continue to dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean. It is astounding to see such a deadly chemical go unregulated.

If you have not caught on by now, dihydrogen monoxide’s chemical formula is H2O – also known as water. Technically speaking, there are no false statements in the above description. But even children know that water is not only (relatively) safe, but necessary for life. The report on “dihydrogen monoxide” originates from a 1997 science fair project by Nathan Zohner, who was 14 years old at the time. His project was titled “How Gullible Are We?” and involved presenting his report about “the dangers of DHMO” to fifty school students to see what their reaction would be. 43 students favoured banning it, 6 were undecided and only one recognised that DHMO was actually water. Even more surprising is that there are cases (such as in California in 2004), where city officials came close to banning the substance, falling for the hoax. This goes to show how gullible people can be in the face of what they do not know.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Reaction

Posted on by Jinavie

If you were walking along the street and found a bird lying on the ground, how would you react? You would probably poke the bird to see if it is alive. We have a peculiar habit since we are children of poking living things that we see for the first time. Through poking, we discover whether it is alive or dead, soft or hard, slimy or furry, docile or aggressive.

Prompting a reaction and observing the reaction is a surprisingly useful way of learning. In chemistry, we react an unknown substance with other chemicals to discover its identity. In medicine, we stimulate parts of the brain with electricity to discover what each part does. In physics, we build giant accelerator to crash particles together to find out their constituents and properties. If you fell into a cave so dark you cannot see even one foot ahead of you, the best way to find out if there is a wall or a hole or water ahead of you is throwing a rock in that direction.

This principle can be applied to psychology. To learn how people around you behave, provoke them. Human beings are extremely sensitive to stimuli and even when they consciously try to hide it, they will subconsciously react. If you keep (subtly) poking the person, you will soon be able to predict how they will react to something, what actions they will take, and you may even discover what is on their mind.

We cannot see the wind, but we can infer that it exists because the leaves blow. The best way to prove something that you cannot see inducing and looking for reactions.

Posted in Philosophy

Oil And Water

Posted on by Jinavie

It is said that oil and water do not mix. This phrase is also used to describe two people who do not get along and cannot even stay near each other. But technically speaking, oil and water can be mixed. When you mix oil and water, you will find that droplets of oil float in the water. If you add an emulsifier (something that helps emulsion – the mixing of oil and water – such as soap or egg white), the oil droplets break down into very fine droplets that spreads through the water to make a stable emulsion fluid. Thus, even something like oil and water that appear to never mix can be mixed using science. Not only that, but some foods that we enjoy so much such as mayonnaise, milk and vinaigrette are all emulsions. Two fluids with different densities and properties, never wanting to be together, can combine to form such a great mixture.

If two people who never get along and refuse to mix were to congeal like mayonnaise, they may form a surprising combination, producing synergy.

1 + 1 = 3

Posted in History & Literature

Mary Celeste

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1872, a ship by the name of Mary Celeste was spotted off the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean – completely intact and undisturbed aside from its missing crew. Not a single person, alive or dead, could be found, despite everyone’s personal belongings still sitting undisturbed where they had been left. Even little things such as valuables and piano music were right where they should have been. It was as if its crew had simply evaporated. There were no signs of a struggle and no cargo was missing. To this day, the case of the disappearing crew of the merchant ship Mary Celeste is one of the most famous maritime mysteries in history.

So what happened to the ship’s crew? Historians have been trying to figure out their fate for decades, but the question was finally solved by scientists. One fact that is known about the Mary Celeste is that of its cargo of 1701 barrels of alcohol, 9 were empty. Although an obvious answer is that the sailors went overboard with a party, the truth is even more spectacular. In 2006, Dr. Andrea Sella, a professor of chemistry at University College London, created a replica of the Mary Celeste’s hold to find out how to create an explosion without leaving a trace of fire. He simulated a leak of the ship’s nine barrels of alcohol and found that once the vapour was ignited, say by a pipe or a spark, it created a pressure-wave type of explosion. There was a spectacular wave of flame but, behind it was relatively cool air. No soot was left behind and there was no burning or scorching.

Ergo, the mystery of the Mary Celeste is most likely as follows: there was a leak of the alcohol, the vapour of which fuelled a massive ghost explosion that swept through the ship. The sailors, completely unscathed but utterly horrified, would have piled into the ship’s lifeboat without any useful things like food or water, eventually sinking or dying of thirst and exposure. The Mary Celeste would have still looked perfectly fine as it drifted the vast ocean, all by itself.

Posted in Science & Nature

Diamond

Posted on by Jinavie

The hardest object on the Earth is diamond. A diamond is famous not only for its hardness but also its luxuriousness and unique lustre. One might call it the king of all jewels. Would you believe then that such a beautiful, tough gemstone is made of the same thing as charcoal and graphite? Diamond is crystallised carbon where the carbon atoms are neatly arranged in a pyramid lattice. Charcoal and graphite are also made of carbon but the carbon atoms are placed in a different configuration, giving them a different look and characteristics. This unique lattice shape can only be achieved under extreme pressure (such as in the mantle of the Earth or in a meteorite). Thus, a diamond is just carbon that has endured stress well.

If diamond is the hardest material, then how can one cut it? The answer is simple – use a diamond. As it is near impossible to polish or cut without knowing this, diamonds were only used in the form of ores until the modern age. In 1919, a mathematician named Marcel Tolkowsky calculated the optimum proportions of a diamond cut to obtain the best lustre. The first time he struck the diamond with a nail, he fainted from the shock. He succeeded the second time and devised the round brilliant cut used most popularly nowadays.

Diamond is especially used in engagement rings. About 80% of all engagement rings sold in the United States are diamond rings. This may be because the toughness of diamond symbolises undying love, but another key reason is due to diamond syndicates and their marketing campaign. Even until the 1930’s, there was a tradition of women keeping their virginity until their engagement. Thus, if a man proposed to a woman, took her virginity and broke off the engagement, the woman had a legal right to sue the man. Diamond syndicate De Beers thought that this tradition was an excellent money-making scheme. They planted the idea that offering a diamond ring when proposing put a price on the woman’s virginity and encouraged men to buy more expensive rings to show their love and respect for the woman. This manipulative advertising campaign was a great success and the price of diamond skyrocketed very quickly. Now, a diamond ring is almost an essential item when proposing. Thanks to these companies, there are still many African children who are being slaved in diamond mines.

Posted in History & Literature

Elements: Four Elements Of The West

Posted on by Jinavie

Human beings have believed that all matter can be divided into basic elements for a very long time. Although we now know that the basic building block of the universe is atoms, what did ancient people believe matter was made of?

In ancient Greece, the seat of Western culture, it was believed that everything was made from the four elements: earth, fire, water and air. According to Aristotle, every element has a primary and secondary characteristic, with the four characteristics being hot, cold, dry and wet. Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot, fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry, earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold and water is primarily cold and secondarily wet. He also spoke of a fifth element (quintessence) beyond the four elements. The name of the fifth element is aether and it is a pure and heavenly element that cannot be corrupted like the earthly four elements. Furthermore, it was thought that aether was the element of the sky and stars were composed of it as they were heavenly, not earthly.

The four classic elements of ancient Greece had an impact not only on physics and chemistry, but also on philosophy and culture (the concept of the four elements is popular in modern games too). The most interesting example of these is a theory by Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, that states that the human body is composed of four bodily fluids (humours) and an imbalance between the humours caused diseases. The four humours are yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air) and phlegm (water). Furthermore, he believed that the four humours affected personalities too. For example, an excess of black bile (“melan chole” in Greek) would cause a person to become introspective and think negatively, leading to depression or “melancholy”. This is quite possibly the first medical records on clinical depression.

The four classic elements of ancient Greece can also be found in ancient Egypt and many other ancient civilisations. It also had a significant influence on alchemy in the Middle Ages.

(Image source: http://y3rk0.deviantart.com/art/The-Four-Elements-87598175)