In short, a liquid’s boiling temperature is dependent on its composition and the atmospheric pressure on the boundary between the liquid and the air above it. For water, the boiling point at sea level is 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit). The atmospheric pressure is roughly 29 mmHg at sea level, but this number is [...]
Snowflakes are the result of symmetrical crystallization of water molecules as they turn into ice crystals. Water molecules, when pass to crystalline solid state, such as in ice and snow, form weak bonds (called hydrogen bonds) in which two hydrogen atoms tend to attract neighboring water molecules. When the temperature drops below the freezing point, [...]
Every few months or so, my son and I like to make straight-chain polymers out of of polyvinyl acrylic (PVA) and sodium tetraborate. It’s pretty simple to do. You just mix one part PVA with one part dihydrogen oxide. Then make a solution of about 40 mg of Na2B4O7, and 400 cc of more dihydrogen [...]
Oxygen is the most abundant. It comprises 49.5% of the total mass of the Earth’s crust, water, and atmosphere. The second most abundant is Silicon (Si) at 27.7% of Earth’s mass.
The half-life of a substance is the time it takes for the number of radioactive nuclei to decrease to one half of the original number. The halflife of a given isotope is always the same, meaning it doesn’t matter how many you have at any given time.