I'm struggling as a chemistry student. I'm very bad at physical chemistry, but Professor Poliakoff inspires me, and his commentary reminds me of why I became fascinated by chemistry in the first place.
Im Professor Science and this is my chem shop, I work here with my old man, and my son, big neil. Everything in here has a story and a price. One thing I learned after 10^9 years, you never know what is gonna radiate into cells.
Interestingly, when looking closer at the V shapes, one of the lines is shifted a little bit to the side, showing that the second particle is coming off a certain timeframe later.
Awesome video! Also, a great demonstration of half-lives at the end with the cloud chamber from the thorium-232 decay series. The Rn-220 nuclide has a half-life of approximately 55 seconds, emitting an alpha particle, becoming Po-216, also emitting an alpha particle, which has a half-life of 0.1 seconds, so they decay almost at the same time, so it looks like 2 alpha particles at the exact same time. If you look closely, you can see some take slightly longer. That's why half-life is used. One nuclide might decay at a certain point in time, while the other nuclide in a different point in time, even if the same parent nuclides are produced at the same time.
There's video from inside a Fukushima meltdown where there's a natural cloud chamber, taken by a robot... the sensor in the camera is sparkling from the radiation as well. Not a place to be!
The cloud chamber looks freaking amazing! I think if one has an emotional response, it is a sign of caring a lot about the subject matter, which means the study is a passion and not just a job. I agree that lends itself much better to breakthroughs and such!
New Zealander here. So, so proud of Lord Rutherford and his work. He graces our $100 note, his hometown of Nelson has a "Rutherford St" (As well as a "Trafalgar St"), he was named at number 1 on the list of top 100 NZers; (Suffragist, Kate Sheppard, who graces our $10 not was 2nd, and Sir Ed Hillary, who graces our $5 note was 3rd, and also named the most important living NZer - this was before he died in early 2008.) and you can still go and see the rooms where he did his undergraduate work at the old site of the University of Canterbury, which mercifully survived the 2010/2011 earthquakes.
2:00 Professor, I have to quibble. If you place radium metal into water in order to collect helium and radon, what you collect instead is a much larger volume of hydrogen for a moment, before your apparatus risks an explosion that would send shards of glass and dissolved radioactive radium hydroxide everywhere. I think perhaps a more docile dissolved salt like radium chloride would have been used instead.
Cloud chamber, some kind of liquid is vaporized then the vapor is cooled so its close to condensing and the particles disrupt it enough to create a tiny vapor trail.
Each of the cloud trails is the product of a radioactive decay, so by observing the quantity of trails you can see how radioactive something is (like a geiger counter), or by looking at individual trails you can make a guess at the nature of each of the decay events (i.e., the annotation on the video).
Sweet, I asked for this one a while back (not the only one probably). I was kinda hoping for more information on why there are adverts about having it in your home, but this is great. From what I gather, it's basically everywhere anyway and we shouldn't really worry too much about it. You guys are awesome. Keep it up.
Always humbling to see that these genius chemists are just as petty and rude as the rest of us, especially when it comes to addressing their competition XD
@@joegillian314 As in sports, being as successful as they were often requires a certain egotistical mindset. Maybe you have to truly believe you are capable of great things if you are to accomplish them.
it is the mass number of the element or the number of protons+ the number of neutrons. and all the same elements have the same number of protons so there are variations in the number of neutrons. so with carbon most atoms have 6 protons and 6 neutrons so it is carbon-12 but there are other variations of carbon, like carbon-13 which contains 6 protons in 7 neutrons. hope this helped!
A home located atop the "reading prong" (in New Jersey), built in the about 1955, had an "extra block" lay in its basement. Being tall in stature, I was glad until I found (by analysis of charcoal absorption samples) the accumulated radon there made breathing equivalent to smoking (20 cigarettes daily) [because tobacco plants gather strontium (or selenium?)-based on the health risk of alpha-decay going on inside your lungs. Fabulous show!
The alpha rays off the sample have a pretty hefty momentum. They are estimated to ricochet on the order of 140,000 times before they come to rest. The ricochets, particularly at the beginning, have the power to ionize the atom they hit (knock one or more electrons away). A cloud chamber has a volume of air super-saturated with the media (water or alcohol). Ions have the ability to trigger condensation in their immediate area, So their trails are marked until their energy becomes too low.
it must be so entertaining to have the professor as a friend. ....every meeting will be like a science lesson. He must be the center of attraction all the time in certain circle. I can almost hear the words " He is soooo cute!
It's a "spectroscope" - a basic defraction grating model - you can get a cheap educational one for < £10. They work in exactly the same way as Newton's famous Prism experiement - where each wavelength of light is refracted at a certain angle according to it's wavelength. In this case, you can see the individual lines of differing wavelengths which, to the human eye, would just look 'red'.
I did have a hard time understand as my knowledge in chemistry are relatively shallow. But I must say, braving myself through the whole video to watch what happens in the end was truly worth it. Beauty!
Radioactive decay usually has a huge amount of energy compared to chemical bonds. Most comes out as the radiation (alpha particle, electron or photon), but like firing a gun, the source atom experiences recoil (which is still big compared to chemical bond strength). In alpha/beta decay, the atom becomes one of a different type, with different chemistry, so the existing bonds may become unstable and break. However, even compatible bonds will usually break because of the recoil.
the number after the element refers to the element's atomic weight. lead 214 weights 214 atomic mass units (amu), whereas lead 210 weighs 210 amu. the extra weight in lead 214 is from the four extra neutrons that it has in its nucleus.
the diffusion chamber is fill wit a vapor that is kept constently on the verge of condensation/evaporation.when a decay occur, the energy from the decay is enough to heat the gaz so turn it into clouds of gaz. go check ''large diffusion cloud chamber with radon gas double-decaying!'' to see a full video and get a better explanation of this phenomenom.
I remember getting a little cloud chamber from Edmund Scientific when I was quite young. It was a small plastic container about 1 cup in volume with a pin setup to hold something radioactive in the center. I think I remember we set some dry ice and water inside and then it exposed tiny tracks coming off the pin head flickering in and out of view - as in this video but very miniature. My memory is pretty weak - but I was amazed to see the violent little atoms show themselves.
Awesome bubble chamber at the end, didn't know the trails were that easy to see! They really should add one of those big magnets underneath that make the particles spiral, would look even cooler and allow you to tell the different particles apart by their charge!
Radon glows for the same reason any other inert gas glows: The technique is actually a form of florescence where the gas is charged with electricity and ionizes. When electrons in higher "orbits" drop to lower "orbits", the change in energy is the emission of a photon in the visible spectrum. In some ways, this is similar to my XRF detector, but the XRF detector uses x-rays and now electricity to excite the atoms :P
I enjoyed doing a sonogashira reaction with a Palladium complex a few weeks ago in advanced synthesis. Very interesting chemistry with all those d-orbital shells.
quarks take part in strong interaction, the colour force. each quarks has a colour, but the hole hadron (stuff like protons andd neutrons) does not, so colours of quarks has to cancel each other. that means that there is 1 red, 1 blue and 1 green quarks all the time. They also constatly change colours using gluons. gluon changes colours of quarks it 'departed' from and the quarks it'arrives' at, and that exchange of gluons generates a force that keeps 3 quarks together as group.
When I lived in Southern California in the mid-1990's, we had radon detectors in our homes. They were occasionally collected and replaced, but I don't know by whom or why. Today, I live in Maine and, on the coast at least, many homes have radon detectors as well.
Hello sir, I have a question for you. A neutron is comprised of two down quarks and a single up quark, correct? From my understanding, this would mean the sole up quark would have to be paired with an up quark in another proton, as quarks only exist in pairs (so I am told). This leads me to the conclusion that all neutron emission occurs in pairs, am I correct? Sorry for my ignorance, I don't meet many people who can answer my questions, as I am 14.
Having spent decades working with PhDs. One truth I learned was "get published or die". My analogy involves golf. You never root against an opponent. You just have to best them. Who ever wins is not as important as did science move forward. Another great vid.
The vapor is just at the temperature required to barely boil. It's like a cold cloud. When a high energy particle knocks into a few atoms of vapor, it causes the vapor atoms it runs into to heat up enough to boil, but only the vapor atoms it runs into. This leaves a trail in the cloud.
We have the same type of cloud chamber here in Jyväskylä University Physics Departments lobby. After lunch I sometimes let myself get hypnotised by the trailings. It is very hypnotic and pretty.
My father is Robert W Ramsey in Maryland USA. He invented and helped design the Eperm , electret ion chamber used to measure Radon gas which is one of the most recognized methods to test for it in homes and buildings. It collects the ions generated from radon decay on a positively charged plate of Teflon housed in a faraway chamber of conductive plastic.
I bought a house in shale country upstate New York that had a big radon problem. I forget the numbers specifically, but for example safe radon levels are like 6ppm and our basement had like 50ppm. If you left the basement door closed for long enough, like a week, and then opened it, an odd, metallic odor would hit you. It’s extremely hard to describe, kind of like the smelling equivalent of chewing on aluminum foil. After I installed the mitigation system and vented the basement properly, the smell went away. No one will ever be able to convince me that radon is “odorless”.
That was likely the “scent of the radon killing your receptors and the nerons firing out of control radiation tends to have a metallic taste/scent when you get a big dose, I have also smelled some trace radon and had a similar experience, just because you get a sense from the element does not mean the element is what you are smelling, it is the decay from the element killing your cells
When a certain uranium isotope breaks down, 235 I believe, it releases radon-235. Soil outside your house contains a fair amount of uranium-235, so if your house is poorly ventilated, the radon will seep through the concrete, into your house. If too much oxygen is displaced by the radon, you could suffocate.
You have to do at least 60 years of hard science and then your body undergoes metamorphosis and you just grow that hair and subsequently become the embodiment of science.
Say you have molecules that contain a radioactive element in their structure... what happens when the radioactive element decays? Do the bonds have some kind of stability, or do they always undo themselves?
As an interesting side fact, Radon gas also ocassionaly escapes from inside the Moon as it is one of the few gases Moon's gravity retained inside the rocks and is thought to be the cause of some transient lunar phenomena observed by amateur astronomers (the other being meteor impacts on the Moon and bad viewing conditions). So Radon outgassing is one of the few geological processes that are still active on the Moon.
I stumbled across this video as am researching the possibility of Radon in my home. What a delightful and knowledgable man this is indeed, and may I say, what a groove hair cut too!. I would sincerely like to bring him along to spend the weekend with my friends and I the next time we indulge in Glastonbury Festival,...it would be fascinating to have him as part of our group for the weekend...yes we are a bit of an odd group but we buy tickets too so watch it!!
The best part of that Radon gas injection demonstration is the ethereal music that just started emanating from the Universe to accompany the visual spectacle. Nature does wonderful things.
There has been a lot of talk about Radon here where I live. We had a massive flood some hundred thousand years ago that brought in soils which not only made our soil fertile but also causes Radon gas to seep out in the hills of the city.
An interesting vignette that you missed out on was the radium/radon health craze of the early 20th century. A lot of those springs, especially hot springs, had pretty high concentrations of radium and radon. So there was this idea that since spring water was widely believed to be healthy, it must be the radon that's doing it. You could buy these mason jars in which you soak disks of cement made with uranium ore over night so that you could always have fresh, healthy radon water in the morning.
Sure, I understand that - I was asking specifically about compounds formed with the radioactive element - What happens when the valence changes such that the compound is no longer possible?
This is probably a silly question - And I don't think anyone will answer, but what happens when a radioactive compound decays? Specifically, if the radioactive element is bound to "something else" and the valency changes due to decay, do the bonds just break?
That's a cloud chamber. The radiation creates trails of ionizations that act as condensation nuclei for a super-saturated vapour. Doesn't really work for studying gammas. Gammas interact weakly, so they zip right through the gas, often without hitting anything. If they do hit something, it can kick out a photoelectron which creates a trace, but you can't really tell where the gamma came from or connect it with a simultaneous even(gammas are often created in or shortly after beta decays).
jimidrix5 turns out professors also like girls.. i wonder if they eat too The second glance made me chuckle though, he was trying to be so sneaky lol. The first one could've just been one of those things where you see something move and just look at it.
Nothing better as a scientist to have your findings being criticised upon or challenged. It could open new perspectives, or, make you even more sure you got it right.
2:55, after many years as a post doc in many countries in many labs, I'd have to disagree with you Professor about "being hard to imagine" I've met scoundrels, witnessed lies, all in the name of competition, not against other academics per se but in the name of ruthless competition for grants.
Very informative! I've always found radon to be a particularly interesting element, but I knew very little about it. On a side note: For some reason, I was under the impression that cloud chambers weren't commonly used anymore, having been superseded by the bubble chamber and spark chamber.
Niton from Lat. nitens 'shining' because as a radioactive element it glows. That was a far better name than radon, thoron (the isotope resulting from the decay of thorium) and actinon (the isotope from actinium also called acton). First of all radon was specifically isotope 222 while niton was applied to all radon isotopes, besides radon is too similar to radium.
I'm very interested in nuclear science. My favourite topic is the use of nuclear power. It's exciting and i love to learn more about it. Thank you, periodicvideos.
It’s called a mass number, and they basically are isotopes, essentially they are the same element because they have the same amount of protons, but the amounts of neutrons can very. The mass number is the amount of Protons and Neutrons in an atom. In your case lead 214 has 82 protons, all lead atoms do, N=M-P Protons = 82 Neutrons = 214 - 82 = 132 So lead 214 has 132 neutrons, now lead 214 is not a stable isotope so sometimes when you have too many neutrons the atom gets unhappy with itself and decays, ejecting particles(radiation) at increable speeds. But when this ejection happens it changes the amount of protons in the atom, thus changing the atom. Hope this helps
I like how, right after that moment, a couple seconds after false perspective suggests Martyn was looking elsewhere, there's this cut, and he says, "I don't know what happened."
It's more that the contents aren't allowed. A lot of libraries don't allow any food or drink inside. The public one where I work isn't anywhere near as strict, though.
The US CDC says that 22,500 cases of Lung Cancer per year come from radon. if you test water from a fresh rain fall it will typically be radioactive for a short time, also from the radon washout. Amazing stuff.
It's called radon since it was first detected from the decay of radium. A particular isotope, radon-220, is sometimes called thoron since it is produced by radioactive decay of thorium.
Page 406 Epikote (Plastics) TN for a range of epoxy resins, used for castings, encapsulation (potting) and surface coatings. epi- is a suffix. Page 405 epidemic (Med) An outbreak of an infectious disease spreading widely among people at the same time in any region. Also as adj.
I guess because glasses (the container) typically are meant for holding liquid (water or beverages), which have the potential to spill over books on the table. So to protect the books it is best to ban glasses altogether. I am guessing cups and other similar containers will not be allowed likewise.
hes the reason for me liking people like himself - a prime example of how every professor should be ... and i havent even visited a college during my whole life
"hee hee! I've made my competitor feel uncomfortable....." Love the professor!
@Antony Quigley She's quoting him...
Antony Quigley You Sir are a dumbass
pavan dutt COVFEFE
hee hee! top comment!
0 ok
The enthusiasm of the professor is contagious and makes fell happy. Thanks for the joy you share with us when making this videos! All the best!!
The cloud chamber was awesome.
They have the same one in the physics departments at Liverpool uni and Jyväskylä uni if you're near either of those!
There is also a youtube chanels called cloudylabs and there is a video called Photoelectric Cloud Chamber where you can see different elements at work
There is also a youtube chanels called cloudylabs and there is a video called Photoelectric Cloud Chamber where you can see different elements at work
There is also a youtube chanels called cloudylabs and there is a video called Photoelectric Cloud Chamber where you can see different elements at work
I prefer the term Gas chamber
I'm struggling as a chemistry student. I'm very bad at physical chemistry, but Professor Poliakoff inspires me, and his commentary reminds me of why I became fascinated by chemistry in the first place.
did you manage?
The professor is such a kind, compassionate man. We need more intelligent, happy and empathetic people in the world.
If you want radon just attach a plastic bag to the end of the pipe coming out of my basement. I've unfortunately got an endless supply
This guy is called science
+Syndi Cat he is science
Science is his middle name
Im Professor Science and this is my chem shop, I work here with my old man, and my son, big neil. Everything in here has a story and a price. One thing I learned after 10^9 years, you never know what is gonna radiate into cells.
Anyone know his full name? Thanks
Sir Martyn Poliakoff
Interestingly, when looking closer at the V shapes, one of the lines is shifted a little bit to the side, showing that the second particle is coming off a certain timeframe later.
ArThorS MAGIC
Awesome video! Also, a great demonstration of half-lives at the end with the cloud chamber from the thorium-232 decay series. The Rn-220 nuclide has a half-life of approximately 55 seconds, emitting an alpha particle, becoming Po-216, also emitting an alpha particle, which has a half-life of 0.1 seconds, so they decay almost at the same time, so it looks like 2 alpha particles at the exact same time. If you look closely, you can see some take slightly longer. That's why half-life is used. One nuclide might decay at a certain point in time, while the other nuclide in a different point in time, even if the same parent nuclides are produced at the same time.
The cloud chamber footage has a certain beauty to it that is very easy to get lost in.
What is beauty my friend
@@MinenArbeiterLP the cloud chamber
@@drzecelectric4302 what is beauty i mean what its
"hee-hee" I idolized this man, guys :D
You dont anymore? What happened??
Gosh, that cloud chamber is incredible. I had always wanted to see video footage of one, and now that I've seen it, it's better than I ever imagined.
There's video from inside a Fukushima meltdown where there's a natural cloud chamber, taken by a robot... the sensor in the camera is sparkling from the radiation as well. Not a place to be!
The cloud chamber looks freaking amazing!
I think if one has an emotional response, it is a sign of caring a lot about the subject matter, which means the study is a passion and not just a job. I agree that lends itself much better to breakthroughs and such!
New Zealander here. So, so proud of Lord Rutherford and his work. He graces our $100 note, his hometown of Nelson has a "Rutherford St" (As well as a "Trafalgar St"), he was named at number 1 on the list of top 100 NZers; (Suffragist, Kate Sheppard, who graces our $10 not was 2nd, and Sir Ed Hillary, who graces our $5 note was 3rd, and also named the most important living NZer - this was before he died in early 2008.) and you can still go and see the rooms where he did his undergraduate work at the old site of the University of Canterbury, which mercifully survived the 2010/2011 earthquakes.
These videos never fail to fascinate me. Thanks Brady, thanks Professor!
hee hee!
2:00 Professor, I have to quibble. If you place radium metal into water in order to collect helium and radon, what you collect instead is a much larger volume of hydrogen for a moment, before your apparatus risks an explosion that would send shards of glass and dissolved radioactive radium hydroxide everywhere.
I think perhaps a more docile dissolved salt like radium chloride would have been used instead.
Cloud chamber, some kind of liquid is vaporized then the vapor is cooled so its close to condensing and the particles disrupt it enough to create a tiny vapor trail.
Each of the cloud trails is the product of a radioactive decay, so by observing the quantity of trails you can see how radioactive something is (like a geiger counter), or by looking at individual trails you can make a guess at the nature of each of the decay events (i.e., the annotation on the video).
More on the cloud chamber please. That was incredible.
this channel makes me so happy about life! thank you!
I just adore the cloud chamber demo - Thanks Professor!
Sweet, I asked for this one a while back (not the only one probably). I was kinda hoping for more information on why there are adverts about having it in your home, but this is great. From what I gather, it's basically everywhere anyway and we shouldn't really worry too much about it. You guys are awesome. Keep it up.
Always humbling to see that these genius chemists are just as petty and rude as the rest of us, especially when it comes to addressing their competition XD
I have this vague feeling that historical figures are usually pretty awful people :D
@@joegillian314 As in sports, being as successful as they were often requires a certain egotistical mindset. Maybe you have to truly believe you are capable of great things if you are to accomplish them.
Each day is a little brighter knowing that the professor exists.
it is the mass number of the element or the number of protons+ the number of neutrons. and all the same elements have the same number of protons so there are variations in the number of neutrons. so with carbon most atoms have 6 protons and 6 neutrons so it is carbon-12 but there are other variations of carbon, like carbon-13 which contains 6 protons in 7 neutrons. hope this helped!
A home located atop the "reading prong" (in New Jersey), built in the about 1955, had an "extra block" lay in its basement. Being tall in stature, I was glad until I found (by analysis of charcoal absorption samples) the accumulated radon there made breathing equivalent to smoking (20 cigarettes daily) [because tobacco plants gather strontium (or selenium?)-based on the health risk of alpha-decay going on inside your lungs.
Fabulous show!
The alpha rays off the sample have a pretty hefty momentum. They are estimated to ricochet on the order of 140,000 times before they come to rest. The ricochets, particularly at the beginning, have the power to ionize the atom they hit (knock one or more electrons away). A cloud chamber has a volume of air super-saturated with the media (water or alcohol). Ions have the ability to trigger condensation in their immediate area, So their trails are marked until their energy becomes too low.
it must be so entertaining to have the professor as a friend. ....every meeting will be like a science lesson. He must be the center of attraction all the time in certain circle. I can almost hear the words " He is soooo cute!
Maybe the friendship would be based on other things. Doubt his whole entire life would be focused on science
the professor is so smart. he is just so sharp. it is always wonderful to listen to what he has to say. please tell him for me brady!
-jesse
It's a "spectroscope" - a basic defraction grating model - you can get a cheap educational one for < £10.
They work in exactly the same way as Newton's famous Prism experiement - where each wavelength of light is refracted at a certain angle according to it's wavelength. In this case, you can see the individual lines of differing wavelengths which, to the human eye, would just look 'red'.
7:36 the professor checking out them cheeks walkin by
I did have a hard time understand as my knowledge in chemistry are relatively shallow. But I must say, braving myself through the whole video to watch what happens in the end was truly worth it. Beauty!
I greatly enjoy the professor's enthusiasm.
Radioactive decay usually has a huge amount of energy compared to chemical bonds. Most comes out as the radiation (alpha particle, electron or photon), but like firing a gun, the source atom experiences recoil (which is still big compared to chemical bond strength).
In alpha/beta decay, the atom becomes one of a different type, with different chemistry, so the existing bonds may become unstable and break. However, even compatible bonds will usually break because of the recoil.
the number after the element refers to the element's atomic weight. lead 214 weights 214 atomic mass units (amu), whereas lead 210 weighs 210 amu. the extra weight in lead 214 is from the four extra neutrons that it has in its nucleus.
the diffusion chamber is fill wit a vapor that is kept constently on the verge of condensation/evaporation.when a decay occur, the energy from the decay is enough to heat the gaz so turn it into clouds of gaz.
go check ''large diffusion cloud chamber with radon gas double-decaying!'' to see a full video and get a better explanation of this phenomenom.
I remember getting a little cloud chamber from Edmund Scientific when I was quite young. It was a small plastic container about 1 cup in volume with a pin setup to hold something radioactive in the center. I think I remember we set some dry ice and water inside and then it exposed tiny tracks coming off the pin head flickering in and out of view - as in this video but very miniature. My memory is pretty weak - but I was amazed to see the violent little atoms show themselves.
Love these videos and the way everything is explained. What a blessing you all give us, thank you all.
1:23 lol Polonium is shaped like Poland
Awesome bubble chamber at the end, didn't know the trails were that easy to see!
They really should add one of those big magnets underneath that make the particles spiral, would look even cooler and allow you to tell the different particles apart by their charge!
The cloud chamber footage is amazing. Could you post it as a separate video?
This channels videos literally NEVER get hate on them..The comments are always so polite.
Radon glows for the same reason any other inert gas glows: The technique is actually a form of florescence where the gas is charged with electricity and ionizes. When electrons in higher "orbits" drop to lower "orbits", the change in energy is the emission of a photon in the visible spectrum.
In some ways, this is similar to my XRF detector, but the XRF detector uses x-rays and now electricity to excite the atoms :P
He is one man who is genuinely passionate about science. An excellent role model.
I enjoyed doing a sonogashira reaction with a Palladium complex a few weeks ago in advanced synthesis. Very interesting chemistry with all those d-orbital shells.
"roids, that's his colleague" haha, love it.
Yes.. his given name is Hema.
Had quite a tough time at school. Poor Chap.
quarks take part in strong interaction, the colour force. each quarks has a colour, but the hole hadron (stuff like protons andd neutrons) does not, so colours of quarks has to cancel each other. that means that there is 1 red, 1 blue and 1 green quarks all the time. They also constatly change colours using gluons. gluon changes colours of quarks it 'departed' from and the quarks it'arrives' at, and that exchange of gluons generates a force that keeps 3 quarks together as group.
When I lived in Southern California in the mid-1990's, we had radon detectors in our homes. They were occasionally collected and replaced, but I don't know by whom or why. Today, I live in Maine and, on the coast at least, many homes have radon detectors as well.
Hello sir, I have a question for you. A neutron is comprised of two down quarks and a single up quark, correct? From my understanding, this would mean the sole up quark would have to be paired with an up quark in another proton, as quarks only exist in pairs (so I am told). This leads me to the conclusion that all neutron emission occurs in pairs, am I correct? Sorry for my ignorance, I don't meet many people who can answer my questions, as I am 14.
Having spent decades working with PhDs. One truth I learned was "get published or die". My analogy involves golf. You never root against an opponent. You just have to best them. Who ever wins is not as important as did science move forward. Another great vid.
The vapor is just at the temperature required to barely boil. It's like a cold cloud. When a high energy particle knocks into a few atoms of vapor, it causes the vapor atoms it runs into to heat up enough to boil, but only the vapor atoms it runs into. This leaves a trail in the cloud.
Just found these videos. I love his personality.
We have the same type of cloud chamber here in Jyväskylä University Physics Departments lobby. After lunch I sometimes let myself get hypnotised by the trailings. It is very hypnotic and pretty.
Wow best experiment, the cloud chamber, can you explain more of it? its truly amazing.
My father is Robert W Ramsey in Maryland USA. He invented and helped design the Eperm , electret ion chamber used to measure Radon gas which is one of the most recognized methods to test for it in homes and buildings. It collects the ions generated from radon decay on a positively charged plate of Teflon housed in a faraway chamber of conductive plastic.
I bought a house in shale country upstate New York that had a big radon problem. I forget the numbers specifically, but for example safe radon levels are like 6ppm and our basement had like 50ppm. If you left the basement door closed for long enough, like a week, and then opened it, an odd, metallic odor would hit you. It’s extremely hard to describe, kind of like the smelling equivalent of chewing on aluminum foil. After I installed the mitigation system and vented the basement properly, the smell went away. No one will ever be able to convince me that radon is “odorless”.
That was likely the “scent of the radon killing your receptors and the nerons firing out of control radiation tends to have a metallic taste/scent when you get a big dose, I have also smelled some trace radon and had a similar experience, just because you get a sense from the element does not mean the element is what you are smelling, it is the decay from the element killing your cells
I'm studying high school Physics at the moment and I found the cloud chamber at the end most exciting, nice video!! XP
When a certain uranium isotope breaks down, 235 I believe, it releases radon-235. Soil outside your house contains a fair amount of uranium-235, so if your house is poorly ventilated, the radon will seep through the concrete, into your house. If too much oxygen is displaced by the radon, you could suffocate.
Awesome ! My New Year’s Resolution is to watch every Periodic Video. Thank You Sir Martyn
Bringing a glass into a library where glasses are forbidden; a young man's spirit of outrageous rebellion persists a long time :D
Great video Brady! Radon has always been my favourite noble gas...
I love his hair.
You have to do at least 60 years of hard science and then your body undergoes metamorphosis and you just grow that hair and subsequently become the embodiment of science.
love this series, I so wish I could visit overseas
too broke and of course I've never flown in my life, but thanks for the videos I really enjoy them
Say you have molecules that contain a radioactive element in their structure... what happens when the radioactive element decays? Do the bonds have some kind of stability, or do they always undo themselves?
As an interesting side fact, Radon gas also ocassionaly escapes from inside the Moon as it is one of the few gases Moon's gravity retained inside the rocks and is thought to be the cause of some transient lunar phenomena observed by amateur astronomers (the other being meteor impacts on the Moon and bad viewing conditions). So Radon outgassing is one of the few geological processes that are still active on the Moon.
9:38 For me it would have been hard to decide whom to watch, the trails or Carola, cause she is very beautyful too.
Excellent video. I really enjoyed this one. Loved the cloud chamber at the end. And the music really seems to fit.
:D
I stumbled across this video as am researching the possibility of Radon in my home. What a delightful and knowledgable man this is indeed, and may I say, what a groove hair cut too!.
I would sincerely like to bring him along to spend the weekend with my friends and I the next time we indulge in Glastonbury Festival,...it would be fascinating to have him as part of our group for the weekend...yes we are a bit of an odd group but we buy tickets too so watch it!!
The best part of that Radon gas injection demonstration is the ethereal music that just started emanating from the Universe to accompany the visual spectacle. Nature does wonderful things.
There has been a lot of talk about Radon here where I live. We had a massive flood some hundred thousand years ago that brought in soils which not only made our soil fertile but also causes Radon gas to seep out in the hills of the city.
Sir, You are a smart scientist who demonstrate so well.
An interesting vignette that you missed out on was the radium/radon health craze of the early 20th century. A lot of those springs, especially hot springs, had pretty high concentrations of radium and radon.
So there was this idea that since spring water was widely believed to be healthy, it must be the radon that's doing it. You could buy these mason jars in which you soak disks of cement made with uranium ore over night so that you could always have fresh, healthy radon water in the morning.
i agree.. im sure everyone attending his lectures went on to be very successful thanks to his wisdom and way with the words
Sure, I understand that - I was asking specifically about compounds formed with the radioactive element - What happens when the valence changes such that the compound is no longer possible?
This is probably a silly question - And I don't think anyone will answer, but what happens when a radioactive compound decays? Specifically, if the radioactive element is bound to "something else" and the valency changes due to decay, do the bonds just break?
That's a cloud chamber. The radiation creates trails of ionizations that act as condensation nuclei for a super-saturated vapour.
Doesn't really work for studying gammas. Gammas interact weakly, so they zip right through the gas, often without hitting anything. If they do hit something, it can kick out a photoelectron which creates a trace, but you can't really tell where the gamma came from or connect it with a simultaneous even(gammas are often created in or shortly after beta decays).
BRADY !!
A video dedicated to that there cloud chamber is absolutely necessary.
professor was checking out those two chicks around 7:34 to 7:37.
jimidrix5 ahahahahaha lol creepy professor
jimidrix5 turns out professors also like girls.. i wonder if they eat too
The second glance made me chuckle though, he was trying to be so sneaky lol. The first one could've just been one of those things where you see something move and just look at it.
+jimidrix5 I don't know about you, but where I live we would call him "straight" not "creepy", but whatever.
+jimidrix5 "Hee Hee! Ladies, want to see a chemical reaction involving your neutrons and my elections?"
Splendid observation mate !
Nothing better as a scientist to have your findings being criticised upon or challenged. It could open new perspectives, or, make you even more sure you got it right.
Love this channel. So professional.
Great video!
Waiting for periodicvideos to go 1080p.
2:55, after many years as a post doc in many countries in many labs, I'd have to disagree with you Professor about "being hard to imagine" I've met scoundrels, witnessed lies, all in the name of competition, not against other academics per se but in the name of ruthless competition for grants.
Very informative! I've always found radon to be a particularly interesting element, but I knew very little about it.
On a side note: For some reason, I was under the impression that cloud chambers weren't commonly used anymore, having been superseded by the bubble chamber and spark chamber.
I could listen to this guy all day
Niton from Lat. nitens 'shining' because as a radioactive element it glows. That was a far better name than radon, thoron (the isotope resulting from the decay of thorium) and actinon (the isotope from actinium also called acton). First of all radon was specifically isotope 222 while niton was applied to all radon isotopes, besides radon is too similar to radium.
I'm very interested in nuclear science. My favourite topic is the use of nuclear power. It's exciting and i love to learn more about it. Thank you, periodicvideos.
Can someone explain to me what the difference between the elements with numbers after them? (i.e. Lead 214 vs Lead 210)
It’s called a mass number, and they basically are isotopes, essentially they are the same element because they have the same amount of protons, but the amounts of neutrons can very. The mass number is the amount of Protons and Neutrons in an atom. In your case lead 214 has 82 protons, all lead atoms do, N=M-P
Protons = 82
Neutrons = 214 - 82 = 132
So lead 214 has 132 neutrons, now lead 214 is not a stable isotope so sometimes when you have too many neutrons the atom gets unhappy with itself and decays, ejecting particles(radiation) at increable speeds. But when this ejection happens it changes the amount of protons in the atom, thus changing the atom. Hope this helps
This is how radium 226 atom turns into a Radon atom, it lost a few neutrons in alpha decay
I'm totally showing these videos to my students when I TA as a chemistry graduate student.
I like how, right after that moment, a couple seconds after false perspective suggests Martyn was looking elsewhere, there's this cut, and he says, "I don't know what happened."
It's more that the contents aren't allowed. A lot of libraries don't allow any food or drink inside. The public one where I work isn't anywhere near as strict, though.
The US CDC says that 22,500 cases of Lung Cancer per year come from radon. if you test water from a fresh rain fall it will typically be radioactive for a short time, also from the radon washout. Amazing stuff.
It's called radon since it was first detected from the decay of radium. A particular isotope, radon-220, is sometimes called thoron since it is produced by radioactive decay of thorium.
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Epikote (Plastics) TN for a range of epoxy resins, used for castings, encapsulation (potting) and surface coatings.
epi- is a suffix.
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epidemic (Med) An outbreak of an infectious disease spreading widely among people at the same time in any region. Also as adj.
That bubble chamber at the end is wonderful! We only had tiny little ones at school.
9:02 Please make a full video about it. It's look amazing.
I guess because glasses (the container) typically are meant for holding liquid (water or beverages), which have the potential to spill over books on the table. So to protect the books it is best to ban glasses altogether. I am guessing cups and other similar containers will not be allowed likewise.
So what, the chemistry of film photographs as a future video? that would be pretty neat I think.
It's on the periodic videos website I believe
hes the reason for me liking people like himself - a prime example of how every professor should be ... and i havent even visited a college during my whole life