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: