Other science (mad and otherwise)

I thought I'd share some other stuff I've been working on lately.  I bought a bunch of electronic parts and pieces  a while back for a project (that never panned out), including some "UV" (technically, near-UV) LEDs.  I was recently looking for something to do with these LEDs, and stumbled across this idea for an ultraviolet nightlight on instructables.com.

The electronics of the project are pretty simple: just two UV LEDs powered in series by a 9-volt battery, with a 150-ohm resistor to limit the current.  I added a switch that I had scavenged somewhere.  The hard part turned out to be finding a suitable base and sheet of plexiglass.  A trip to a local thrift store turned up an old plastic box (from a first-aid kit, maybe?) and some acrylic picture frames.  Total cost, about a buck and a half.

I cut a hole in the box, glued in a piece of acrylic, and glued in the guts.

The inside of the nightlight, with the UV LEDs shining up through the acrylic.

The finished product.  Just needs some writing!

You can write on the acrylic with a fluorescent highlighter pen (yellow works best, but orange doesn't look bad either), then turn on the UV LEDs.

The light looks best in total darkness, but you can see it even with some low ambient lighting.  And when you want a new nightlight, just wipe the acrylic clean and start over!  The kids thought it was pretty neat.  And, to be honest, I did too!

Another "project" I did recently was to carve a Halloween pumpkin.  I know it's early, but my creative juices were flowing.  I was going to carve a periodic table, but decided that was a bit too ambitious.  So I created an orange version of one of my favorite people:

I took this the day after I carved it...it's already starting to shrivel.

Doesn't look like much...let's add a candle.

Pretty good, yah?

Nuts

I baked these a long time ago (maybe three weeks?) and I'm just now getting around to blogging them.  It took me forever to find the recipe that I used - I forgot to bookmark it - but I finally found it:  Butter Pecan Cookies.

The cookies turned out great - they were very simple, but delicious.  I used my regular cookie sheets again (instead of air-bake) and they didn't spread out at all.  My wife said that these were the best cookies (or biscotti) I've made since starting this asinine project, and I think I agree.  Yum, yum, yum.  Oh, and...yum.

I'll give these a 9.5 on the totally arbitrary Clark scale of baked goodness.

I've been baking more cookies than biscotti lately...time for a change, maybe.

Nitrogen

I keep putting off writing this post.  Some of it is because I've been busy with other stuff, some of it is because I'm just plain lazy, and some of it is because there's so much to say about nitrogen.

Nitrogen is roughly 4/5 of our atmosphere, which is good, since if our atmosphere was pure oxygen, oxidation and combustion would be uncontrollable.  When you chill nitrogen down to -196 degrees, (Celsius of course...who in their right mind uses Fahrenheit anymore?) it liquifies, and you can do all sorts of cool things with it (like dip a rose in it and then shatter it against a counter, or make ice cream really really fast).  Hmmmm...run-on sentence.   But the most fun thing about nitrogen is its use in explosives.

Molecular nitrogen (N2) has a triple bond between the two nitrogen atoms.  This triple bond is very stable, and takes a lot of energy to break apart.  Conversely, if a reaction forms a N-N triple bond, a lot of energy is released.  This is why so many common explosives contain nitrogen atoms: ammonium nitrate, nitroglycerin, TNT (trinitrotoluene), etc.  These molecules form stable N2 when detonated, liberating a lot of energy in the process.

One particularly unstable nitrogen compound is nitrogen triiodide (NI3).  The three iodine atoms form a pyramidal shape around the lone nitrogen atom.

Nitrogen triiodide structure: blue for nitrogen, purple for iodine.

The large size of the iodine molecules lends some instability to this molecule, but what really makes it explosive is its decomposition reaction:  2 NI₃ (s) → N₂ (g) + 3 I₂ (g).  What this shorthand means is that two molecules of solid nitrogen triiodide react to form one molecule of gaseous nitrogen and three molecules of gaseous iodine.  A huge amount of energy is liberated in the formation of the N-N and I-I bonds.  As a result, nitrogen triiodide is a highly sensitive contact explosive, as demonstrated below:




Nitrogen triiodide can be made from fairly common household chemicals, and I've been itching to make some at home, but I'm not sure I can convince my wife that it's safe.  Is this why so many mad scientists stay single?

Cinnamon graham crackers

Originally, my ingredient for element 6 (Carbon) was cinnamon.  But when I started looking for cinnamon cookie recipes, I stumbled across this great recipe for Cinnamon Graham Crunchy Cookies.

I made these quite a while ago and I'm just now getting around to this blog post, so I don't remember much about baking them (memory is the second thing to go...I forget what the first thing is).  I do know that they turned out much better than the last few batches of cookies I'd tried.  I baked them on regular baking sheets instead of my air-bake sheets, and they didn't spread out very much at all.  The combination of the cinnamon-y crumbs, the chocolate chips, and the pecans was delightful.  I took three plates' worth to the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale for their baked goods sale - hopefully whoever bought them thought they were yummy!

I'll give these a rating of 8 out of 10 - hopefully the next batch will be even better!

Carbon

Ah, good old element number 6 - carbon. Life just wouldn't be the same without it. Carbon compounds include amino acids, sugars, proteins, caffeine, and pretty much anything else necessary for life.

Elemental carbon (without any other atoms connected to it) is pretty cool, too. Carbon comes in different allotropes, which means that the carbon atoms form different configurations. When the atoms form a crystal lattice, you get diamond. When the atoms line up in flat sheets, you get graphite. A third allotrope, containing 60 carbon atoms in a soccer-ball shape, is called buckminsterfullerene (or buckyball) because of its similarity to the geodesic dome desinged by Buckminster Fuller.

Buckminsterfullerene (buckyball) allotrope of carbon.

We often hear of "carbon footprints" and the need to reduce them. A carbon footprint refers specifically to the gas carbon dioxide (two oxygen atoms bonded to one carbon atom), and the impact of a particular activity on the emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. Some geniuses at the website Null Hypothesis have come up with a brilliant way to reduce our carbon footprint - stop breathing. To quote:

The average person takes 24,000 breaths a day, breathing in approximately 6g of carbon dioxide, but breathing out around 800g during the same time. Over a year, you personally will add a net 290kg of CO2 to the atmosphere, just by exhaling. Multiply that by a global population of 6.5 billion and it adds up to a criminal 1.88 gigatonnes.

If we each merely cut out one breath in three, we could decrease the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere each year by a staggering 0.63 gigatonnes. That’s 0.63 billion tonnes - the same effect as saving 5 million acres of land (an area the size of Wales) from deforestation, or recycling 192 million tonnes of waste instead of trashing it.

I don't know about you, by my respiration rate decreases significantly when I'm asleep. So I'm going to go save the planet...please don't interrupt my nap.

Brown sugar

I know, I just used a recipe with a ton of brown sugar in it for Heath toffee bits, but this is my blog, and I like brown sugar, okay?

The recipe I used comes from a blog called "Natalie's Killer Cuisine", and is called "Killer Brown Sugar Cookies".  It uses dark brown sugar, which I had to make a special trip to the grocery store to obtain.  The recipe also calls for a whopping 1 tablespoon of rum extract.

The recipe tells you to melt 10 tablespoons butter and heat it until it is light brown, then add 4 more tablespoons butter and whisk to melt.  A word of advice: DON"T DO THIS WITH A KITCHEN-AID MIXER.  Even at low speed, the mixer threw glops of melted butter out of the bowl and all over my shirt.  This was bad enough, but what made it even worse was that I was wearing my favorite St. Louis Cardinals shirt, which now has greasy stains on the front.  BAH!  (Maybe I should consider wearing an apron, but it just doesn't seem very manly...)

The cookies, like many I've baked recently, spread out a LOT and ended up very skinny.  I'm still experimenting with remedies for this problem - I'm going to try different cookie sheets next.  I've been using air-bake sheets, which may be part of the problem.  The cookies tasted okay, but they were pretty heavy on rum flavor.  They reminded me of Butter Rum Life Savers, which I remember eating by the truckload as a kid.

I may be old, but a roll of Life Savers was still more than 5 cents when I was a kid.

I'll give these a rating of 5 out of 10.  Seems like I've been making a lot of mediocre cookies since I started this blog!

Boron

Element 5...boron.  Not a combination of "boring moron", but not a terribly interesting element either.  The most common boron compound that most people have seen is borax, Na2B4O7*10H2O.  Boron in its elemental state is a very hard and brittle metalloid.


Boron is essential for cross-linking the polymer chains in Silly Putty.  In real Silly Putty, the polymer chains are made from polyvinyl alcohol, but you can make your own slimy polymeric putty with Elmer's glue.  Here's a good recipe from Steve Spangler's website:

This recipe is based on using a brand new 8 ounce bottle of Elmer’s Glue. Empty the entire bottle of glue into a mixing bowl. Fill the empty bottle with warm water and shake (okay, put the lid on first and then shake). Pour the glue-water mixture into the mixing bowl and use the spoon to mix well. Add the glue-water mixture to the glue in the mixing bowl. Go ahead… add a drop or two of food coloring.

Measure 1/2 cup of warm water into the plastic cup and add a teaspoon of Borax powder to the water. Stir the solution – don’t worry if all of the powder dissolves. This Borax solution is the secret linking agent that causes the Elmer’s Glue molecules to turn into slime.

While stirring the glue in the mixing bowl, slowly add a little of the Borax solution. Immediately you’ll feel the long strands of molecules starting to connect. It’s time to abandon the spoon and use your hands to do the serious mixing. Keep adding the Borax solution to the glue mixture (don’t stop mixing) until you get a perfect batch of Elmer’s slime. You might like your slime more stringy while others like firm slime. Hey, you’re the head slime mixologist – do it your way!

When you’re finished playing with your Elmer’s slime, seal it up in a zipper-lock bag for safe keeping.

The borax dissociates to borate ions in solution.  The -OH groups on the borate ions form weak hydrogen bonds with the -OH groups of the polyvinyl alcohol (or glue polymer), which allow the polymeric chains to link and unlink as the putty (slime) stretches.

See the Boron (B) atom in the middle?  Neat, huh?

And that's probably more than you'll ever need to know about boron.  Oh, except that boron compounds make a pretty green flame when burned:

Buckeyes

My original plan for element 4 (Be) was brownie.  However, when we were recently in Ohio, my 7-year-old daughter sampled a "buckeye" at a family gathering and wanted to make some, so...

"Buckeyes" are a candy which consists of peanut butter-y stuff dipped in chocolate.  Traditionally, you don't fully dip the peanut butter center, so that the candy ends up looking like a buckeye, which is a nut from a buckeye tree.

I had these all the time when I was living in Ohio, but I don't see them as much in Virginia.  However, I don't see many obnoxious Ohio State Buckeye fans here in Virginia, either, so I guess it's an even trade.

I tried to make buckeyes once in college, using a recipe which included paraffin wax melted in with the chocolate coating - I guess this was either to improve consistency or appearance of the coating.  I evidently used too much paraffin, though, because my "candy" ended up tasting like peanut butter-flavored crayons.

Here's the recipe I tried this time: Crunchy Buckeyes.  I liked the sound of these - the rice krispies would add a nice crunch.  I made them with my daughters' help.

However, I ran into a big problem: the chocolate chips refused to melt into a consistency which would allow for dipping of the peanut butter balls.  I tried heating it up hotter (afraid I'd burn the chocolate), and I tried adding a bit of milk, which just ended up making the chocolate seize.  We did manage to make a few pathetic-looking buckeyes, but I think that the chocolate chips needed something else to thin them out - maybe paraffin, maybe shortening, I don't know.

I'll give this recipe a 3 out of 10.  I just couldn't make it work.  It was possibly a problem on my end, but a good scientist always blames the experimental procedure.

The peanut butter filling, though, was delicious!

Beryllium

Beryllium.  Hmmm...I don't have much to say about beryllium.  Having spent much of the last 18 years in various laboratories, I've seen a lot of elements, but I've never seen pure beryllium or any of its compounds.  One thing I do know is that it's toxic, so you shouldn't lick it (which, come to think of it, is a good general rule for people who work in laboratories:  "Don't Lick It.")  Also, they use beryllium in alloys with copper to make tools for use where sparks would be a problem.

I just did some research, and found some pictures which neatly demonstrate how different elements can look in their pure state versus what they look like in their compounds.

Here is a sample of pure beryllium:

Looks a bit like a melted metallic turd.  Pretty, huh?  But combine beryllium with some aluminum, silicon, and oxygen atoms, and maybe throw in some chromium, iron, or vanadium impurities, and you get beryl, aquamarine, and emerald:

Ain't science cool?

Lime

Li - what else could it be but lime?  (Well, lilac, I suppose...)

One of my favorite desserts is key lime pie.  I made some "key lime" cookies a few years ago, and was disappointed with the results, so I thought I'd try something different for this project: Guyanese Lime Cookies.  They had mostly rave reviews on allrecipes.com, and they sounded yummy.

Well, I baked these about a week and a half ago, and I'm just now getting around to writing about them (I've been busy, all right?).  I don't have any pictures, but these cookies (like my Heath Bits cookies) spread out fairly thin.  My wife thinks it might be because I've been using real butter instead of margarine in my recipes (hey, what's a few more calories?).

The taste was very different - you could definitely taste the lime, but the nutmeg and cinnamon came through even stronger.  My wife thought they had a bit too much cinnamon, but my in-laws and I thought they were very yummy, and they disappeared all too soon (the cookies, that is...not my in-laws).  (Just kidding...my in-laws are great!)

These were pretty good...I'll give them an 8 out of 10.

Home again

We had a good weekend in Ohio for my grandmother's funeral.  The funeral service was a wonderful celebration of grandma's life, and I got to see all of my aunts and uncles, and nearly all of my cousins.  (No small feat, when you consider that my mom has 7 siblings, and there are 16 of us grandkids.)  The weather was cool and perfect - I feel like I got my first taste of fall.

My younger sister Jenita and my mom.

My nephew Tanner (who looked 5 years older over the summer), my aunt Carol (who looked 5 years younger), my sister Janelle (did I mention that she's almost 40?), and my daugher Natalie.

Me and my older (nearly 40!) sister, Janelle.

My daugher Marissa, with some Colorado cousins: Riley, Walker, and Landen.

We also had a 50th birthday party for my mom's youngest sister, Carol.  Carol doesn't have any children of her own, but she has been an awesome aunt to all of her nieces, nephews, and now grand-nieces and grand-nephews.

Mom (3rd from right) with her three brothers and four sisters.

Aunt Carol (in the middle) with a pile of nieces and nephews.

When grandma passed away, she was sitting in her wheelchair with her Bible in her hands.  As I listened to the stories people shared about her life, I couldn't help but to think of the fruits of the Spirit listed in the Bible...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Grandma embodied all of these, and more.  She loved to study her Bible, and it makes me smile to think of her having all her questions answered at Jesus' feet.

We were also able to visit with my wife's family, and we took a walk with her grandmother and our nephew along the bike path near her parents' house.

Marissa with her cousin Camdyn, on the bike path.

Enjoying a beautiful fall day.

I am blessed to have such a great family!

Goodbye

I received word last night that my grandma Martin (my mother's mother) had passed away.  This has been a rough year, as I lost my grandpa Martin last August, and my grandma Clark this past October.

Grandma Martin was 90 years old.  She and my grandfather had eight children (my mom is 3rd oldest), and lots and lots of grandkids and great-grandkids, so there will be quite a few of us travelling for her funeral from around the country.  Please keep my family in your prayers.

This is one of my favorite pictures of grandma (I stole this off my sister's blog).  Here she is with her kids (at the time only six, but two more daughters were to come).  My mom is second on the left.

We'll miss you, grandma.

Lithium

Okay, moving on to element number 3.  Lithium is the first metal on the periodic table, and is the lightest of the non-gaseous elements.  It's density is so low, in fact, that it will float on water.  However, it will react with that water to form bubbles of hydrogen gas, as well as lithium hydroxide, which will dissolve in the water.

Because of lithium's low density, it is often combined with other metals to form strong, lightweight alloys.  Compounds of lithium include lithium stearate (used in high-temperature greases) and lithium carbonate (used as medication to treat mental illness).

As I'm writing this, I find that I'm boring even myself.  For those of you who actually read this post, I apologize.  Here are some lyrics to "Lithium" by Nirvana to make up for it:

I'm so happy 'cause today
I found my friends
They're in my head
I'm so ugly, that's okay
'Cause so are you

Oh, and here's the chorus:

Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah

Truly, words that capture the essence of the early '90s.

Herbs

Okay - recipe number 2.  Since I already used Heath bits for the symbol "H", I needed something different for symbol "He", and I went with "Herbs".  I don't usually bake savory goodies, since I have a very active sweet tooth, but I found a recipe for Sundried Tomato and Herb Biscotti that sounded interesting.  I found the recipe on a blog with the great name of "The Food In My Beard".  Having recently shaved off my own full beard, I now have to store excess food in my pocket instead.

The recipe actually comes from Giada de Laurentis - the "Food in My Beard" guy just added some sundried tomatoes.  The recipe calls for "herbes de Provence".  I found a whole slew of recipes to make your own "herbes de Provence", many of which included lavender buds (really?  flowers?).  My wife has an extensive herb garden, but it doesn't include lavender (I thought about substituting some zinnias, or even some dandelions), so I made up my own recipe as follows:

-some thyme

-some rosemary

-some marjoram

-some basil

-some (but less than the other "some's") summer savory

-some grass clippings that blew onto the herb garden when I mowed the yard earlier in the afternoon

Reaping the bounty of my wife's herb garden.

I stuck all this in the food processor along with 5 chopped-up sun-dried tomatoes, and pulverized it to a wet powder.  This is what I then used as "herbes de Provence" in Giada's recipe.

Biscotti is a type of cookie that you bake twice - once as a loaf, then a second time after you slice the loaf into cookies.  After the first baking, the biscotti loaf looked delicious, and the kitchen began to smell like a pizza parlor.

I was able to slice the biscotti pretty thin without it crumbling, and the second bake turned the cookies a beautiful golden brown.

The finished product.

I was a bit disappointed with the taste of the biscotti, considering how good they smelled when they were baking.  They seemed a bit flat to me - I think that some black pepper would spice them up a bit (or maybe more grass clippings).  Also, they are quite crumbly, and tend to fall apart when you bite into them.  My official mad scientist rating for these is 5 out of 10.

My wife's parents are visiting from Ohio this weekend.  I used my mother-in-law as a taste-testing guinea pig. She's big on herbs - she gave us a whole pile of dried herbs from her garden for Christmas last year.  She said she really liked the flavor of these biscotti.  My wife really likes them, too.  I'll let them eat as many as they want, and go back to baking sweets!

Helium

Okay, on to element number 2.  Helium is the first of the so-called "noble gases" on the periodic table.  These are called "noble" because they are very stable and chemically unreactive, so they don't usually hang out with the common riff-raff of the other elements.  It was once believed that these gases did not form any compounds with any other elements, but compounds of xenon with fluorine (among other combinations) have been synthesized.

It's fairly common knowledge that inhaling helium will make your voice sound funny.  I have firsthand experience with this phenomenon.  When I visited COSI (a science museum in Columbus, Ohio) many years ago, one exhibit contained a helium tank to which you could attach a disposable cardboard tube, inhale, and sound like a chipmunk for several seconds.  I had so much fun with this that I tried it over and over again, and ended up with a tremendous headache, probably from a lack of oxygen to the brain.  I was probably fortunate to not pass out.  Oh...and when I say many years ago...I was about 25 at the time.

Why does helium make your voice sound funny?  Basically, since helium is much less dense than air, sound waves travel faster through it.  The pitch of your voice is determined by the vibration of your vocal cords.  This doesn't change, since your vocal cords vibrate at the same frequency no matter what you've been breathing.  But the timbre of your voice is affected by the vibration of air in your vocal tract.  If your vocal tract is full of helium, your voice will travel faster, and sound higher.  Or something like that.

So if helium makes your voice higher, what would a heavier-than-air gas make you sound like?  Here is a video clip from one of my all-time favorite shows - Mythbusters.



Now, if I could just get my hands on some sulfur hexafluoride - then I could hit those low bass notes at hymn sings.

Heath toffee bits

My first recipe of my periodic baking project is a cookie recipe.  I was going to start with biscotti, but my 7-year-old daughter informed me that I make too much biscotti - she likes cookies better.  Element 1 is hydrogen (symbol H), so I decided that Ingredient 1 would be Heath (toffee) bits.

Here is the recipe I tried - Brown Butter Heath Bit Cookies.  The recipe uses a lot of butter (2 sticks), and a lot of brown sugar (2 1/4 cups).  My cookies spread a lot on the baking sheets, and I ended up with large, flat, crisp cookies.  I tried refrigerating the cookie sheets and the cookie dough, but the cookies still spread.  I think that I probably should have added some flour to stiffen the dough a bit.

However, the cookies taste fantastic.  They are very butterscotch-y (is that a word?) and would probably go great with a cup of coffee (although, really, everything goes well with a cup of coffee).  My kids even liked them, although my 5-year-old said that they needed chocolate chips.

The cookies are done when they are the approximate color of our cat, Mobius.

All told, I'm going to give these cookies a 7 out of 10.  Since I just made up this rating, and this is my first batch of cookies for this totally nonsensical project, I don't yet know if that's really good or not!

Hydrogen

I'll start my element posts with element number 1 - hydrogen.  A hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron, which makes it the simplest (and lightest) element.  Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.  Hydrogen combines with carbon and oxygen to make up compounds as varied as water, alcohol, and sugar.  It also makes up a good percentage of our bodies.

Hydrogen is lighter than air, and can be used to make balloons float.  However, it is highly flammable, so balloons are now mostly filled with helium (which is almost as light, and very stable).

One reason why the Goodyear Blimp is filled with helium instead of hydrogen.

Hydrogen combines with carbon and oxygen to make up compounds as varied as water, alcohol, and sugar.  It also makes up a good percentage of our bodies.

A neat way to make your own hydrogen is through the electrolysis of water.  You can simply hook up two wires to the terminals of a 9-volt battery, then stick the ends of the wires in a cup of water.  At the negative (-) wire, bubbles of hydrogen will form.  Of course, since water is H2O, oxygen will form at the cathode (+) wire, and you will get twice as much hydrogen as oxygen.  Here is more detail on how to carry out this fun experiment.

Hydrogen is the fuel of the stars - fusion of hydrogen provides the energy to keep our sun (and other stars) burning for billions of years.  In the process, two hydrogen atoms are converted to one atom of element number 2 - helium.

I love chemistry.  I fell in love with chemistry in Mr. Rydarowicz's class at Leetonia High School, twenty years ago.  (I also discovered another life-long love in that class...one of my lab partners was a cute brunette who, six years later, became my wife.  Back then, though, she was dating someone else...but that's a different story.)

Anyway.  Chemistry.  I majored in chemistry at Eastern Mennonite College, and later obtained my master's degree in chemistry from Lehigh University.  I've worked as an analytical chemist for fourteen years.  I've always enjoyed the mathematical simplicity of chemical equations - one molecule of something, plus one molecule of something else, equals a totally different compound!

For my 35th birthday this past January, I received a wonderful book - "The Elements", by Theodore Gray.  It contains beautiful pictures of each element of the periodic table, in order by atomic number.  This book re-ignited a desire which I've long had, to collect a sample of each element of the periodic table.  Since many elements, in their pure state, are dangerous - either extremely reactive, toxic, or radioactive - my wife (tolerant, but practical) told me that I wasn't about to store my collection at home.  I still have aspirations of compiling an element collection, or at least the elements I can keep safely.

I also love to bake.  The act of combining simple ingredients - butter, sugar, eggs, flour - to create a sweet, delicious goodie contains a magic similar to the wonders of a good chemical experiment.  In fact, a lot of baking is chemistry - the emulsifying properties of eggs, the browning of sugar cookies when they are "done", and the leavening action of baking soda are all due to the chemistry of the molecules involved.  I'm always trying out new cookie and biscotti recipes, with varying degrees of success.

Since I also love to create totally unnecessary tables and spreadsheets, I decided to combine chemistry with baking and create a periodic table of cookies.  Each element on the periodic table has a symbol - one or two letters which are usually (but not always) an abbreviation of the element's name.  For each symbol, I tried to come up with an ingredient.  For example, H (for Hydrogen) can also stand for Heath Bits.  Every week (more or less), I'm going to bake a cookie or biscotti recipe which uses an ingredient on my table, and write up my findings on this blog.  Since there are over 100 elements, this totally pointless project will take some time.  But hey, it's safer than bringing home samples of arsenic and uranium!