One of the largest uses of Aluminum (Aluminium) is in the construction industry for window frames, door frames, panel walls and as extruded framing members for curtainwalls (exterior skins of high-rise buildings). When Aluminum is heated, then pushed through a high pressure steel die press, it comes out with very accurate prismatic, useful shapes. It has very nearly replaced cold formed steel for this purpose. Also, when you anodize the Aluminum it has great adhesion characteristics for the application of silicone based sealants (leaking buildings are a bad thing). Loved the oversized Aluminum model (9:40) at the end of the video.
Sir Humphry Davy originally called it 'aluminum' but somebody suggested changing it to conform with other 'ium' elements, many of which had been discovered by Davy himself. Personally, I could never stop calling it aluminium. It's too late, it's somehow tangled in with my identity as an Englishman.
The '-ium' suffix is in a lot of elements. If you're going to call it 'aluminum' and ignore the '-ium' suffix, you may as well ignore the suffix in other elements too. Start saying 'potassum' and 'calcum' and 'sodum'.
Aluminium is also widely used in micro- and nano-electronics. In particular in the form of Sapphire as substrate for the deposition of thin films of other metals and in the form of superconducting tunnel junctions, where the AlOx is used as the insulating layer in the junction. These are at the base of the entire superconducting electronics.
I'm going to school for biotechnology and eventually i would like to get my masters in microbiology or toxicology i haven't really made my mind up yet. But ever since i found this channel i have increased my productivity in school because of these videos!! lots of experiments i get to try with the hand of my proff's and its nice to show my class these as well. Learning so much because of this channel.
Thank you so much for redoing your aluminium video. I've been waiting four years to see this important element given a "proper" treatment in one of your videos. Again THANK YOU! Note: My computer's spellchecker thinks aluminium is a misspelling, so there is still more eduction to be done.
Thanks for this. I've had so many arguments with people in my chemistry class due to them antagonising me with the American pronunciation at every opportunity. I'll have to email this to them!
I think it should be "aluminum" because that's what Humphry Davy settled on and the oxide is alumina (not aluminia). The spelling "aluminium" was proposed by an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review in 1812. While many metals end in "-ium" (strontium, cerium, radium), "-um" endings are not unheard of (platinum, molybdenum, lanthanum). The oxides of "-ium" elements generally end in "-ia" (strontia, ceria, radia), whereas those of "-um" elements (if they are given special names) tend to end in "-a" (lanthana).
I have learned more through these video about chemistry, astronomy and physics than my entire college career (though I was a Psychology major). I hope that one day Psychology and Neuroscience will be as respected as your profoundly important fields. Thanks to all the professors taking time to share their knowledge and the filming/editing gentleman for making this information public. Keep it up!
We had to work on a whole chapter on aluminium production in class once. It was boring as hell. Well, this mentioned the most important takeaway (and more, of course) and was really interesting. I love the fact that aluminiumoxide is a solid acid. That sounds really exciting.
I've actually used both pronunciations, although I grew up calling it aluminum, after school I've learned to call it aluminium. Either way works for me. It's like measuring temperature...I always used Fahrenheit but now I use metric just as much and I've become pretty proficient at interconverting between the two. To me, there's no real right or wrong, but I agree, aluminium just sounds more "science-y".
So, I live in the US, so it's pronounced "A-lu-min-um" but I've always spelled it Aluminium. There's so many words in English (or American English I suppose) that aren't pronounced the way they are spelled, so I never really thought about it until now. At least I spell it the more correct way.
I grew up calling it Aluminum in the States - but I agree with the Professor that Aluminium sounds more fun to say even if my autocorrect tags it as incorrect. lol
I'm rather confused. around 7:00 you talk about melting aluminium oxide into that glass crystal tube. A few seconds later you start talking about sapphire tubes. Are they one in the same? Or is this some mix-up of footage? Is sapphire just an aluminium oxide?
This stirred my curiosity about the difference between American pronunciation and elsewhere, so I went to Wikipedia. Briefly, Humphry Davy used "Alumium" in 1808, but in 1812 called it "Aluminum", although it had not yet been purified. Contemporaries quibbled about adding another "i" toward the end to make it sound more classical. It seems that thinking dominated in Europe. In North America the major producer of the metal used the -um spelling in advertising from 1892, so that became common usage there.
Two interesting things I know about aluminium that weren't mentioned here: The apex of the Washington Monument was made of aluminum because it was an incredibly valuable metal. At the time, it was the largest piece of aluminum ever cast at 100 oz. Only a couple years later, the method that made aluminum cheap to produce made it nearly worthless as a chunk of metal, although it is still a good lightning rod, which is good, since the monument is the tallest thing in the area. The patina of aluminium oxide that protects the metal against further oxidation can be disrupted by introducing mercury. The mercury catalyses a reaction between aluminium and water, with aluminium hydroxide as the product. It's extremely destructive. This is why metallic mercury isn't allowed on airplanes. I'd love to see you make a time-lapse of that, Brady. Also, Neil makes fireballs, doesn't even yell "HADOUKEN!" because he's just that badass.
Thanks,Prof...a lot of info here , i hope will be along time around to make as many video you can,...you are a source of information and is is good to hear the facts confirm,by a Professor...himself, Great one thanks,..
2:30 So in powder form there is no aluminium oxide? Is it the particle size or the lack of the oxide that allows it to be so reactive? Please and thanks!
I understand the history of the whole aluminium/aluminum debate (first called aluminum, changed to aluminium to match the names of other elements). What I don't understand if why this didn't go further into other elements that don't fit the standard. Why haven't hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, iron, gold, lead, etc been changed to an -ium name as well?
i like your videos a lot, especially prof. martyn's. I've always wondered how chemist identify different materials and things, like for example, if you see some liquid or some material that you know nothing about, how do you identify it and know what elements and molecules are there? i'd very much like it if you could make a video about that. thank you :)
When I was a child I stole several containers of aluminium powder that was intended for metallic paint. I burned it all because I was puzzled how is it that the same material that saucepans are made out of can burn, and the cooking ware doesn't, when placed upon a hot gas flame. I didn't get any answers until years later. lol
It's a shame that you didn't use liquid gallium on aluminium metal (e.g. can), it's a nice thing to watch. But I guess it's better to include that into the video about gallium.
I've had people try and convince me that Aluminium is an inherently better spelling than Aluminum. Really, the only reason Aluminium was chosen is because the ending -ium is used ridiculously frequently for element names. That's literally the only reason it was chosen as the "standard" spelling. But it was Aluminum first, and Americans are nothing if not stubborn.
Aluminium rules the cycling industry. Brakes, derailleurs, levers, chainrings and hubs are rarely made of anything else. I even made an aluminium foil helmet that blocks mind control waves quite nicely. Or is it conducting them? Crap.
Time for a new thorium video (discussing new nuclear reactor tech, and the fact it is found with rare earths, and that the US considers it a nuclear fuel - but doesn't use it). Fascinating element.
At least we know that both spellings are correct. When Bill Coors, an American, invented the first Al beverage cans in 1959, they had printed on the bottom (for the next 25 years) "All Aluminum Can. 12 Fluid Ounces"
ok, so on abundance periodic chart, i see francium has quite large area. isn't francium not even suppose to be on the chart since it is the most scarce element in the world?
Aluminium does *not* turn colors like steel, iron, copper alloys when heated. So, the lab accident the Professor talks about wouldn't have had any warning before that Aluminium fixture melted. Check out videos of Aluminium casting foundries to see the melted metal all shiny and silver….
I seem to remember reading an article some time ago that said the original discoverer of aluminum pronounced it aluminium. I can't remember what country he was from (I suppose I could google it, but whatever), but he named it, and pronounced it that way. That puts the American vs British way of saying it to rest, as it's not really the "British" way of saying it, it's just the correct way. Anyway, don't have anyway of siting that as fact, just what I remember reading.
It makes more sense to say aluminium but I don't get it for sulfur. Why do you use ph when you already have a letter for that sound === f? Why write phenol when you can write fenol? Did the letter f not exist back then?
On the topic of oxidation, can mercury rust or tarnish? The metal looks just as shiny every time i see it, and as it is a metal, i would expect some form of oxidation.
Aluminium was actually predicted by Mendyelye"yev or Mendeleev before it was actually discovered. He predicted that the empty spot in the periodic table is not a flaw, but an undiscovered element
the differences in pronunciation between america and england (or europe) has caught me off guard before. a british youtuber pronounced controversy ( CONtroversy in america) as conTROVersy, and for a while i had no idea what he was saying. aside from the barely related discussion on pronunciation, i really wish you guys (periodic tables) would go more indepth on 'exotic' metals. there was a video on osmium and not much was said other than "it exists and is used in stuff". what's interesting about the metal? how does it compare to other metals? does it create any weird reactions? what i'm starting to get is that chemists tend to focus on elements they know they can do stuff with, which makes no sense to me but i'm not a chemist so what do i know. i just think it would be terribly tragic if some life saving and easily made compound was made out of one of these elements that could have been developed years ago but wasn't because no one had any interest in the elements used. there are a lot of different combination i know and it would be impossible to map out every single possible reaction and mixture possible but i always thought to point of experimentation was to discover the unknown. or maybe people HAVE experimented on these metals a ton and they really are that boring. i don't know
You guys feeling all superior for calling it aluminium realize that the first person to use -ium was basically a 19th century troll anonymously criticizing the discoverer for calling it 'aluminum' in his book, right?
America, the US one, does a lot of harm globally by keeping their own naming system. We all watch dozens of videos daily that are made in USA and what it does is muddle everything up. The 'i' in Aluminium is just a drop in the ocean. Pounds, feet and gallons... What it does is that rest of the world is guestimating length of objects, stopping our process of watching the video for couple of seconds while we guess the length of something. It's inefficient and there are no reasons for it, none what so ever. The only explanation are "this is how we do things, live with it, it doesn't bother us".. Well, it should bother you, a lot. Metric is simple, logical, precise. If you think you have no reason to change things, think about this: Imperial units in USA are there to give manufacturers a lot of profit rounding up numbers. There is much more leeway how to express quantities. It is deliberately confusing and relies on memorization rather than actual thought process. They can pick what ever unit they like to suit their rounding up process. With metric system, there is very little they can do about that. Imperial units are a system that is designed to give "about there" measurements, devised in a time when measuring something absolutely perfect was not important not to mention impossible..
05:19. I can't imagine Prof Poliakoff getting angry with anyone. He seems such a gentle soul. :)
It would interesting to see a video on aerogel
He cut his hair :(.
One of the largest uses of Aluminum (Aluminium) is in the construction industry for window frames, door frames, panel walls and as extruded framing members for curtainwalls (exterior skins of high-rise buildings). When Aluminum is heated, then pushed through a high pressure steel die press, it comes out with very accurate prismatic, useful shapes. It has very nearly replaced cold formed steel for this purpose. Also, when you anodize the Aluminum it has great adhesion characteristics for the application of silicone based sealants (leaking buildings are a bad thing).
Loved the oversized Aluminum model (9:40) at the end of the video.
Sir Humphry Davy originally called it 'aluminum' but somebody suggested changing it to conform with other 'ium' elements, many of which had been discovered by Davy himself.
Personally, I could never stop calling it aluminium. It's too late, it's somehow tangled in with my identity as an Englishman.
The '-ium' suffix is in a lot of elements. If you're going to call it 'aluminum' and ignore the '-ium' suffix, you may as well ignore the suffix in other elements too. Start saying 'potassum' and 'calcum' and 'sodum'.
Film by Brady Haran? The same Brady Haran from Numberphile?
www.bradyharan.com
Aluminium is also widely used in micro- and nano-electronics. In particular in the form of Sapphire as substrate for the deposition of thin films of other metals and in the form of superconducting tunnel junctions, where the AlOx is used as the insulating layer in the junction. These are at the base of the entire superconducting electronics.
the correct way to say it is "levi-O-sa"
Please do a video on fluoride! Would love to see it!
I'm going to school for biotechnology and eventually i would like to get my masters in microbiology or toxicology i haven't really made my mind up yet. But ever since i found this channel i have increased my productivity in school because of these videos!! lots of experiments i get to try with the hand of my proff's and its nice to show my class these as well. Learning so much because of this channel.
Thank you so much for redoing your aluminium video. I've been waiting four years to see this important element given a "proper" treatment in one of your videos. Again THANK YOU!
Note: My computer's spellchecker thinks aluminium is a misspelling, so there is still more eduction to be done.
Thanks for this. I've had so many arguments with people in my chemistry class due to them antagonising me with the American pronunciation at every opportunity. I'll have to email this to them!
I think it should be "aluminum" because that's what Humphry Davy settled on and the oxide is alumina (not aluminia). The spelling "aluminium" was proposed by an anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review in 1812. While many metals end in "-ium" (strontium, cerium, radium), "-um" endings are not unheard of (platinum, molybdenum, lanthanum). The oxides of "-ium" elements generally end in "-ia" (strontia, ceria, radia), whereas those of "-um" elements (if they are given special names) tend to end in "-a" (lanthana).
I have learned more through these video about chemistry, astronomy and physics than my entire college career (though I was a Psychology major). I hope that one day Psychology and Neuroscience will be as respected as your profoundly important fields. Thanks to all the professors taking time to share their knowledge and the filming/editing gentleman for making this information public. Keep it up!
We had to work on a whole chapter on aluminium production in class once. It was boring as hell.
Well, this mentioned the most important takeaway (and more, of course) and was really interesting.
I love the fact that aluminiumoxide is a solid acid. That sounds really exciting.
the way he said Nomenclature sounds far too difficult
Lets just call it Aluminuminium.
I've actually used both pronunciations, although I grew up calling it aluminum, after school I've learned to call it aluminium. Either way works for me. It's like measuring temperature...I always used Fahrenheit but now I use metric just as much and I've become pretty proficient at interconverting between the two. To me, there's no real right or wrong, but I agree, aluminium just sounds more "science-y".
TH-cam is famtastic. Your videos are great. I so wish i had this media when i was at school. Im learning so easily how. I dont even do chemistry.
Always interesting. I would never have guessed Aluminium and Silicon to be so similar in abundance.
Thanks Professor this is great for all ages!
His periodic table is titled in Catalan! I guess he must have been to a conference in Barcelona.
5:18
Oh no! It's an Elephant's Foot!
The problem with saying "aluminium" as an American, is you just come off sounding pompous.
So, I live in the US, so it's pronounced "A-lu-min-um" but I've always spelled it Aluminium. There's so many words in English (or American English I suppose) that aren't pronounced the way they are spelled, so I never really thought about it until now. At least I spell it the more correct way.
What I need: a time machine, all the aluminum bottles, cans, pots, pans, foil and house siding I can get.
3:00 Looks like the Death Star Exploding!
I grew up calling it Aluminum in the States - but I agree with the Professor that Aluminium sounds more fun to say even if my autocorrect tags it as incorrect. lol
I love the new video Brady and Professor!
I'm rather confused. around 7:00 you talk about melting aluminium oxide into that glass crystal tube. A few seconds later you start talking about sapphire tubes. Are they one in the same? Or is this some mix-up of footage? Is sapphire just an aluminium oxide?
This stirred my curiosity about the difference between American pronunciation and elsewhere, so I went to Wikipedia.
Briefly, Humphry Davy used "Alumium" in 1808, but in 1812 called it "Aluminum", although it had not yet been purified. Contemporaries quibbled about adding another "i" toward the end to make it sound more classical. It seems that thinking dominated in Europe.
In North America the major producer of the metal used the -um spelling in advertising from 1892, so that became common usage there.
11:19 Could Neil with its most serious countenance cook some cabbage-made Union Jack in the Prof's way ?
so is it a good idea to blow the flames in the direction of the gas connection and over those rubber hoses?
Two interesting things I know about aluminium that weren't mentioned here:
The apex of the Washington Monument was made of aluminum because it was an incredibly valuable metal. At the time, it was the largest piece of aluminum ever cast at 100 oz. Only a couple years later, the method that made aluminum cheap to produce made it nearly worthless as a chunk of metal, although it is still a good lightning rod, which is good, since the monument is the tallest thing in the area.
The patina of aluminium oxide that protects the metal against further oxidation can be disrupted by introducing mercury. The mercury catalyses a reaction between aluminium and water, with aluminium hydroxide as the product. It's extremely destructive. This is why metallic mercury isn't allowed on airplanes. I'd love to see you make a time-lapse of that, Brady.
Also, Neil makes fireballs, doesn't even yell "HADOUKEN!" because he's just that badass.
Why can't I hear the sound?!?! it's only with Periodic Videos!!! all other videos are working o.0
Thanks,Prof...a lot of info here , i hope will be along time around to make as many video you can,...you are a source of information and is is good to hear the facts confirm,by a Professor...himself, Great one thanks,..
Cant wait to see the whole periodic table again, are you gonna make a 2.0 version of every element or only the ones in need of such ''update''?
Spotted a nice little Void Cube on the professor's desk :)
could you make a video about the new element please? :)
Great anecdote at the end!
Is there away I can keep the aluminum oxide off the aluminum after I have smelt it into a bar
2:30 So in powder form there is no aluminium oxide? Is it the particle size or the lack of the oxide that allows it to be so reactive? Please and thanks!
Awesome, I was looking forward to a new one just a week ago and there it is.
I understand the history of the whole aluminium/aluminum debate (first called aluminum, changed to aluminium to match the names of other elements). What I don't understand if why this didn't go further into other elements that don't fit the standard. Why haven't hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, iron, gold, lead, etc been changed to an -ium name as well?
Aluminium sulphate is widely used for purification of drinking water.
i like your videos a lot, especially prof. martyn's. I've always wondered how chemist identify different materials and things, like for example, if you see some liquid or some material that you know nothing about, how do you identify it and know what elements and molecules are there? i'd very much like it if you could make a video about that. thank you :)
When I was a child I stole several containers of aluminium powder that was intended for metallic paint. I burned it all because I was puzzled how is it that the same material that saucepans are made out of can burn, and the cooking ware doesn't, when placed upon a hot gas flame. I didn't get any answers until years later. lol
These videos are so wonderful.
Nice video, however when aluminium melts it does not turn glow like he says, rather just stays silver like aluminium.
Fascinating as always!
Aluminium pans are still used in industrial catering, stainless steel pans in a large pan tend to burn
Aluminium.
Colour.
Armour.
Grey.
Neighbour.
Centre.
Fibre.
Practise.
Advise.
Paralyse.
I love his ties
That was a Lucalox tube.
Alumina (aluminum oxide) + Magnesia (magnesium oxide) sintered together.
Can you talk about that chart? What is the deal with the weird shape and those random looking voids on it?
@8:00: you would do better if you used sunlight for your reaction to make it more efficient, unless you needed a constant 24/7 source of light.
Brilliant update.
7:00 Now we can build the Enterprise!
I luv the small details this guy tells you
It's a shame that you didn't use liquid gallium on aluminium metal (e.g. can), it's a nice thing to watch. But I guess it's better to include that into the video about gallium.
aluminium powder reacts nicely with iron oxide :)
This guy was my mum's professor!
The main thing I took away from this video:
We know how to make transparent aluminum.
Obviously, Star Trek IV was a documentary of actual events.
I've had people try and convince me that Aluminium is an inherently better spelling than Aluminum. Really, the only reason Aluminium was chosen is because the ending -ium is used ridiculously frequently for element names. That's literally the only reason it was chosen as the "standard" spelling. But it was Aluminum first, and Americans are nothing if not stubborn.
Wow, the periodic table is in catalan! I'd never expected that.
nature has time... lovely saying
Can you talk about the reaction between aluminium and mercury in a future video?
Great new video on Aluminium! Nice work guys!
This video is long overdue! Thanks. :)
Aluminium rules the cycling industry. Brakes, derailleurs, levers, chainrings and hubs are rarely made of anything else. I even made an aluminium foil helmet that blocks mind control waves quite nicely. Or is it conducting them? Crap.
Do you research before you make these videos or do you already know about it?
Transparent aluminum
Fun fact: aluminium and some of its' alloys are the only metals that can't be affected by steel pushing and iron pulling.
Time for a new thorium video (discussing new nuclear reactor tech, and the fact it is found with rare earths, and that the US considers it a nuclear fuel - but doesn't use it). Fascinating element.
Aluminum comes from the term alumina, the oxide.
At least we know that both spellings are correct.
When Bill Coors, an American, invented the first Al beverage cans in 1959, they had printed on the bottom (for the next 25 years) "All Aluminum Can. 12 Fluid Ounces"
I'm curious, is that clear aluminium tube electrically conductive, or is it an insulator like glass?
ok, so on abundance periodic chart, i see francium has quite large area. isn't francium not even suppose to be on the chart since it is the most scarce element in the world?
I would love to see a demonstration of the cabbage transformation, is a remake on the agenda?
Aluminium does *not* turn colors like steel, iron, copper alloys when heated. So, the lab accident the Professor talks about wouldn't have had any warning before that Aluminium fixture melted. Check out videos of Aluminium casting foundries to see the melted metal all shiny and silver….
I seem to remember reading an article some time ago that said the original discoverer of aluminum pronounced it aluminium. I can't remember what country he was from (I suppose I could google it, but whatever), but he named it, and pronounced it that way. That puts the American vs British way of saying it to rest, as it's not really the "British" way of saying it, it's just the correct way.
Anyway, don't have anyway of siting that as fact, just what I remember reading.
It makes more sense to say aluminium but I don't get it for sulfur. Why do you use ph when you already have a letter for that sound === f?
Why write phenol when you can write fenol?
Did the letter f not exist back then?
Always informative. Great videos.
the weird periodic table is in catalan! "Els Elements Químics d'Acord amb la seva abundància a la Terra!"
On the topic of oxidation, can mercury rust or tarnish? The metal looks just as shiny every time i see it, and as it is a metal, i would expect some form of oxidation.
Transparent Aluminium is so Star Trek!
Aluminium was actually predicted by Mendyelye"yev or Mendeleev before it was actually discovered. He predicted that the empty spot in the periodic table is not a flaw, but an undiscovered element
the differences in pronunciation between america and england (or europe) has caught me off guard before. a british youtuber pronounced controversy ( CONtroversy in america) as conTROVersy, and for a while i had no idea what he was saying.
aside from the barely related discussion on pronunciation, i really wish you guys (periodic tables) would go more indepth on 'exotic' metals. there was a video on osmium and not much was said other than "it exists and is used in stuff". what's interesting about the metal? how does it compare to other metals? does it create any weird reactions? what i'm starting to get is that chemists tend to focus on elements they know they can do stuff with, which makes no sense to me but i'm not a chemist so what do i know. i just think it would be terribly tragic if some life saving and easily made compound was made out of one of these elements that could have been developed years ago but wasn't because no one had any interest in the elements used. there are a lot of different combination i know and it would be impossible to map out every single possible reaction and mixture possible but i always thought to point of experimentation was to discover the unknown. or maybe people HAVE experimented on these metals a ton and they really are that boring. i don't know
awesome tie.
FIRST, Aluminum or Aluminium are both correct because of the culture variations between the nations so no one pronunciation is correct.
melting point is ~660°C
Does the professor like his Casio Waveceptor watch? I like mine.
Thumbs up; if you have squished Aluminium as small as you can possible at school after eating sandwiches.
You guys feeling all superior for calling it aluminium realize that the first person to use -ium was basically a 19th century troll anonymously criticizing the discoverer for calling it 'aluminum' in his book, right?
0:25, where can I get one?!
Isnt the melting point of Al arround 660 degrees C?
How toxic is Aluminium? particularly wrt to aluminum foils and vessels used for cooking?
how did I hear him say nomenclature? :)
America, the US one, does a lot of harm globally by keeping their own naming system. We all watch dozens of videos daily that are made in USA and what it does is muddle everything up. The 'i' in Aluminium is just a drop in the ocean. Pounds, feet and gallons... What it does is that rest of the world is guestimating length of objects, stopping our process of watching the video for couple of seconds while we guess the length of something. It's inefficient and there are no reasons for it, none what so ever. The only explanation are "this is how we do things, live with it, it doesn't bother us".. Well, it should bother you, a lot. Metric is simple, logical, precise. If you think you have no reason to change things, think about this:
Imperial units in USA are there to give manufacturers a lot of profit rounding up numbers. There is much more leeway how to express quantities. It is deliberately confusing and relies on memorization rather than actual thought process. They can pick what ever unit they like to suit their rounding up process. With metric system, there is very little they can do about that. Imperial units are a system that is designed to give "about there" measurements, devised in a time when measuring something absolutely perfect was not important not to mention impossible..