It's a MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE

6.02 x 10^23.

A big number it is. 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Was thought up by a guy named Amadeo Avogadro. This ug-- I mean, lovely old guy.



It's a big unit of measure that's used to tell how many atoms are in a certain amount of whatever. If you had 12.01 grams of Carbon, you would have 6.02 x 10^23 atoms of Carbon, or a mole of carbon atoms. (By the way, this is an example of molar mass, which can be found on the periodic table).

A mole is biiiig. A mole of papers stacked up could travel to the Moon and back... 80 billion times.

Did I mention it was really big?

And then in class on Thursday, there were tons of hole punches on the floor (although I don't think there were a mole of them!) And we had to calculate the mass in grams of .047 of a mole of atoms in them, and our table won! Theresa, Krystina, and Marcia are hella awesome. :3

Also, Mr. Olson made a video that talks about moles!

Polarity

Attract and repel each other like water and oil ;D

Some molecules are polar when the atoms are bonded together. This is due to a difference in the electronegativity levels. An EN difference from about 0.5 to 1.7 will make a molecule polar covalently bonded.

Polar bonds happen when there is an EN difference between 0.5 to 1.7. One atom pulls electrons closer to it than the other atom, which makes them orbit around that atom more often. This creates two poles, one slightly positive and one slightly negative. In many cases, the existence of these poles (dipoles) makes the molecule a polar (dipole) molecule. In the example of water below, the oxygen atom (red) is the negative pole; the hydrogen atoms (white) are centers of positive charge. Because a oxygen to hydrogen bond creates a polar bond, the oxygen attracts electrons to it more and creates a center of negative charge.



In some other cases, two polar bonds can cancel each other. Take the example of carbon dioxide, shown below in the right.



Because both C-O bonds are polar, they create centers of positive and negative charge. However, since the molecule's structure is linear, the bonds are at direct opposites of each other. The attractive forces of each in either direction cancel each other's out. The molecule, therefore, has no center of charge, and is not a polar molecule. To the right, CH2O has a polar bond. Since it is not canceled out by an opposite force, it is a polar molecule overall.

Somries

Did you know two molecules can have the same chemical formula but different structures?

These are called isomers. They're made of the same number and kind of atoms, but arranged in a different shape such that it changes the physical properties of the substance. These can be seen most commonly in hydrocarbons (organic molecules) which contain long carbon chains. These carbon chains can be broken down so that they branch off a single main carbon chain, which changes its chemical properties.

All hydrocarbons including and after butane have at least one isomer.

n-butane is a straight carbon chain butane molecule, while isobutane branches off, seen above.

Molecules

...come in some funky shapes.

There are five basic types of molecular structures, that are dependent on how many bonds the compound forms.

The first kind is a linear structure. One element sits in the center, bound to two other elements on the side. Because of the VSEPR theory, the electrons want to be as far away from each other as possible because they repel. If each side element sits 180 degrees apart from each other, the molecule becomes balanced and a linear structure is formed.

The second kind is a bent molecule. When a molecule, such as H2O, is bonded, a lone pair is left over. Because there are now three groups of molecules, the side elements will separate out even further, to an angle of 105 degrees.

The third kind is a trigonal planar molecule. Three side elements will separate to form a 120 degree angle between each element to maximize the distance between each electron pair.

The fourth kind is a trigonal pyramid. When three side elements and a lone pair are present, the lone pair forces the elements into a tetrahedral shape, but it is called a pyramid because only the three side elements are present.

The final kind is a tetrahedron, mentioned earlier in the trigonal pyramid. Four bonded side elements will form a tetrahedral shape to balance out the molecule.

Polyatomic Ions

In addition to regular cations and anions, there are molecules called polyatomic ions!
These molecules are positively or negatively charged just like ions, except they are made of two or more elements. An example of these polyatomic ions include ammonium (NH4+), Hydroxide (OH-), Nitrate (NO3-), Nitrite (NO2-), Acetate (C2H3O2-), Sulfate (SO4-2), and Phosphate (PO4-3).

They bond to compounds such as ammonium chloride and acetic acid, where acetic acid is shown above.

Naming Compounds

This week we learned how to name Type 1 and Type 2 Binary compounds.

Type 1 Compounds are ionic compounds in which the ions are always a specific cation or anion of that element. They involve pairing metals, which always form cations, with nonmetals, which always form anions. These compounds have a balanced charge. For example, AlF3 is a compound in which Aluminum forms a cation with a +3 charge, while one Fluorine atom forms a -1 charge. Therefore three fluorine are required to balance this compound's charge. In addition, this compound is named aluminum fluoride. The metal always goes in the front of the formula, and the nonmetal follows, with the suffix -ide.

Type 2 compounds are compounds in which the ions formed may be variable, because there are several kinds the element can form. This is seen mostly in the transition metals, such as iron, which can form a cation with a +2 or a +3 charge. These are differentiated by a roman numeral after the name which signifies the charge: Iron (II) is the iron cation with a +2 charge. The method for naming compounds remains the same except for the roman numerals. FeO is iron (II) oxide.

Flame ON!

On a side note, today is also MOLE DAY! Happy 6.02 x 10^23!
This week we did a really cool flame test with different kinds of elements like Sodium and Boron.

They emitted different colors of flames when we burned them, such as bright candy red and bright lime green! This is because each element has a unique energy signature that gives off discrete photons when energy is added. In the case of copper, it emits green light because its energy level makes it emit a certain wavelength of light (with a specific amount of energy) that is green!

On another side note, my group accidentally left in the metal hoop for too long and it turned white hot. x_o

Einstein Cheated on His Wife

And married his cousin. :v

We were watching a really awesome movie this week about Einstein and E equals m c squared! It also had scientists like Michael Faraday (who discovered electromagnetivity), Lise Meitner (who studied radioactivity and discovered nuclear fission), and Emile du Chatelet (Voltaire's mistress who studied physics).

We also continued work on radioactivity with two worksheets, and learned about the band of stability, which shows where elements are likely to be stable. Anything with too many neutrons will likely beta decay, while having too few neutrons can result in electron capture (which makes gamma rays.) Finally, alpha decay results from very heavy elements (such as Uranium) just having too many protons and neutrons.

More Radiation!

This week, we continued learning about radiation.

Nuclear reactions can cause a chain reaction that is self-sufficient. When a radioactive element gives off neutrons as it decays, those high speed neutrons can slam into other stable atoms and cause them to decay as well. This process continues on and remains self-sufficient as long as the number of neutrons and atoms balances out. In science, this balance is called the critical mass. If one neutron causes less than one reaction, the process dies off. If the critical mass is too high, the reaction will eventually generate enough heat to cause a violent explosion.

Radioactive elements release a lot of energy: incredible amounts of it that tower over the amount of energy released from combustion (burning coals, fuels.) That's why research has gone into exploring possibilities of creating a more environmentally friendly energy source using nuclear power. Uranium and Plutonium are popular elements to use in these nuclear reactors to produce energy.

Nuclear reactors produce energy by using the energy given off to power steam turbines that generate electricity. While this creates efficient energy, there are risks and extreme dangers of nuclear reactors. If a reactor overheats, it can potentially explode and spew radioactive waste into the atmosphere. This radioactive waste can spread across large areas, and remain radioactive for a very long time, thus making the surrounding area completely uninhabitable. In the disaster of the Chernobyl in Austria, the explosion of a nuclear reactor spread nuclear waste all across Europe and made the city where Chernobyl was uninhabitable. Many people died in the explosion, and even more were sick with radiation poisoning and cancer. Even with these dangers, the huge amounts of energy produced by radiation still fuels further research.

Radioactivity

This week, we learned about radioactivity. It's when atoms decay because they become unstable into another stable element. This can be caused by a different number of neutrons, or when high energy particles slam into an atom and destabilize it. The most common kind of radiation is alpha particle decay, where decaying elements spit out alpha particles (4/2 Helium atoms) and lose 4 in mass number and 2 in atomic number. Beta decay is where it loses a beta particle (electron) and loses only 1 in atomic number.

Sometimes, radioactive decay can result in gamma ray production, which are just high energy particles with no weight and no charge. Light is an example of a gamma ray.

These radioactive atoms all have half-lives, which is the amount of time required for the sample to lose 50%. Carbon-14 has a half-life of around 5730 years, while Uranium-238 has a half life of 4.46 [b]billion[/b] years! Scientists and archaeologists can use these half-lives to date ancient artifacts and samples of matter.

Atoms are greedy

Yes they are.

Atoms have the same number of protons as their electrons, therefore they're neutral. However, atoms have a level of electronegativity and ionization energy. Electronegativity describes how greedy atoms of a given element are, or their tendencies to attract electrons. The trend of electronegativity increases from the bottom left to the top right of the table. The least electronegative atom is Cesium because it has the most electron shells, which makes it hold its electrons very loosely. Opposite Cesium is Flourine, with the highest level of electronegativity because it holds its many electrons very tightly. The noble gases generally do not have any electronegativity because their electron shells are full.

Ionization energy is the amount of energy it takes to remove an electron from an atom's outermost valence shell. Similar to the electronegativity trend, the amount of energy increases from the bottom left to the top right. Helium has the highest ionization energy because it holds its electrons very tightly and has its electron closest to the positive nucleus (because it only has one shell), and therefore it requires the most energy to pull the electron off.

Nucleus!

THIS this week, which is not this week, we learned about how atoms were discovered and what they -probably- look like. They're a really small particle unseen by the human eye, with an even smaller nucleus made up of protons and neutrons. (If the atom was a football stadium, the proton is only the size of a fly in the middle. :o)

Swirling around the nucleus are extremely tiny electrons in a giant cloud. The number of protons determines what kind of elemental atom it is, and the number of neutrons can make it a different kind of isotope. Atoms can lose or gain electrons and become cations and anions, respectively. The ones in Groups 1, 2, and 3 lose 1, 2, and 3 electrons to make 1+, 2+, and 3+ charged cations. They can merge with those in Groups 6 and 7, which gain 2 and 1 electron(s) to make ionic compounds. They can combine to make compounds like salt (NaCl)!

On Thursday, we watched a Simpsons parody of the Powers of Ten video. Apparently we all live inside Homer Simpson's hair cell, in his DNA. What if we get shaved off? :(

This week:

This week:



We learned about the periodic table. :O
It was invented in the 1700s by a scientist named Mendeleev (Men-dal-lay-yev)
The table is organized by trends that go from left to right and up to down. Most of the metals are on the left side, and the right side is nonmetals. If you go down a group, the reactivity, atomic size, and atomic mass get bigger (except for the halogens, where it goes from bottom up, with Flourine being the most reactive)~

If you go from left to right, the atomic size gets smaller but the mass gets bigger, because they have more protons and it makes the atom heavier but smaller at the same time. The alkali metals on the left are really reactive to water, while the noble gases at the very far right are completely unreactive~

quizzes, and burning steel

Today we had an "Isaquiz" that had us do all sorts of algebra and graphing and converting units! I thought it was really boring and easy :c

Then we had to register for our online textbook (which I already did beforehand) and then finish up our glossary definitions on Google Doc(uments).

At least yesterday, we had lots of fun burning steel wool and electrocuting water until it split into hydrogen and oxygen. The lighter almost burned someone's lab paper if they didn't turn it off in time ~! Then we would've had a chemical reaction where the paper would turn into smoke :]

Matter!

Matter is anything that takes up space and has a mass. Yesterday we were measuring mass and volume by using a scale and some graduated cylinders. Luckily, the things we measured had a mass that was measurable without any complicated instruments, but I've always wondered how scientists measure the mass of large objects... like whales. Or maybe small, miniscule things like atoms and dust mites (which we all know exist). What about volume? How do you measure the amount of water or mass in the ocean? Maybe we'll learn about it later in our unit.

                . --- .
             /        \
            |  O  _  O |
            |  ./   \. |
            /  `-._.-'  \
          .' /         \ `.
      .-~.-~/           \~-.~-.
  .-~ ~    |             |    ~ ~-.
  `- .     |             |     . -'
       ~ - |             | - ~
           \             /
         ___\           /___
         ~;_  >- . . -<  _i~
            `'         `'

Penny Lab

On Wednesday, we did an experiment called the Penny Lab. It involved turning a penny into a gold color through a series of chemical reactions. First, we dipped a penny in a hot zinc and sodium hydroxide mixture, and left them there for about 15 minutes. When we came back, we took the pennies out and washed them off in cold water. We started up the Bunsen burner, and made a nice hot blue flame (safely of course). Then, we inserted the pennies into the flame for a couple seconds and washed them off in water. The result: a gold penny! Many came out bent and burnt, but we could see that they had turned a bright yellow gold on the outside.

While you could probably fool young children with them, the reality is it wasn't real gold and it was nothing more than a cover up. :<

Goals and Passions

My Goals and Passions:

1. I would to be able to pass all my classes with As.
2. I want to graduate high school and enter a four year college.
3. I want to major in computer sciences or biology.

I also have a passion for the arts and music, which I would like to take up as hobbies when I have time. I would love to travel all around the world and see Europe and Asia. Most of all, my goal is to be happy in life.