Walston,+Anissa

Classification of matter: Out of all of the three Classification of Matter charts I found the third chart to be the most helpful for me. It was easy to read and understand. I liked it because it gave examples of the element and compound in pure substances and the homogeneous and heterogeneous in mixture. Although, the first chart was also helpful because it had an actual picture of what each looked like. The second chart was very basic and can be compared to the third chart, just without the examples. But after looking at the third chart I could sort of see what the first chart was showing. But by just looking at the first chart it was kind of confusing. All three charts are pretty much the same except that the second was very basic, the first had pictures, and the third came with examples. Out of the three, I thought the third was the best to understand.

Separation of Matter: Something I found interesting about the different separation techniques is how distillation takes place. I thought the second picture was a pretty good picture of how distillation takes place. Although, the video was helpful because it explained how the water vapors would travel up through the flask and then go through the condenser to the drop back out to the test tube. I also found the chromatography experiment to be interesting in how the different colors showed up on the wet paper when it had been just one solid color before. I thought it was a good experiment showing how they mix the colors for the skittles and m&m's and how the different companies produce their products.

Why is measurement important to you: An example of something that would need an exact or accurate measurement in my life would be measurements for cupboard space when we are remodeling our kitchen. In any household work or renovating you have to have certain measurements that you would need in order to put something in your house, such as in my case, new cabinets for our kitchen. If you mess up the measurements of the cupboard space, you could end up making them tProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 long or too short and it would look riProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 culous in the end. And if you were to mess this up the first time or if you didn't use measurements at all, you would have to redo everything and start back from the beginning measurements.

Anissa, Cabinet makers are very careful with their measurements! Good! MW

Redefining the Kilogram: I found it very interesting in general that there is only one official kilogram for the United States. What I am wondering is if other countries have their own official kilogram that they base their weight systems off of. It is also interesting that there are 90 calibrated platinum iridium of the official international prototype. It is cool how the kilogram is one of the seven base units of the International System of Units. Also, the kilogram is the last of the SI base units that is still defined by a physical artifact rather than by an unvarying physical property of nature. This is what seemed to stick out while I was reading the article because I thought it was interesting and cool to learn.

Airline Security: The article I read about airline security was very interesting to me. I found it interesting that this man would hide a bomb in a baby doll. It's not surprising that this can occur, because I'm sure if you're a terrorist anything will work when you are trying to hide a bomb to take on a plane. This also reminds me of when they tried to hide the bombs in their shoes and water bottles. Something I found surprising was that over twenty fire-arms are found per week in the airport checkpoints. I'm glad that we have airline security to check our bags before we get on the airplanes. It may be inconvenient for us at some times, but it could save our lives in the end.

Mole Day: Some interesting things that I learned while checking out the mole day website is how the mole originated and who it's founder was. The founder of the mole was Amadeo Avogradro, who was a physics professor but experimented in chemistry and and physics using his mathematics to base his findings. His hypothesis was that at a fixed temperature and pressure, equal volumes of gases contain the same number of particles. This hypothesis/law was not recognized until 50 years after he had made it. He was he first person to argue in favor of the existence of the atom.

Dust Explosions and Stoichiometry: I found the article very interesting. I never knew that something as common as a sugar plant could cause such a big fire and hurt people. It said in the article that the first explosion causes the dust to that has settled in the plant of the years is stirred up and disturbed and then it also ignites by the first explosion. I was wondering why they let there factories get so dusty and why they don't clean it or sweep it so the dust doesn't build up? Would it be too dangerous? This would be related to chemistry because if sugar is burning in air then it would obviously be on fire and cause explosions. I think that maybe the keep up of the plant should be looked into more so maybe the people could create a safer environment to work in.

Sulfur Hexafluoride: I also agreed with the article about the gas being dangerous to breathe in, especially since sulfur can be made into gunpowder and matches and fluorine being the most reactive non metal. I think that breathing in these gases are particularly dangerous just becuse you are breathing in unnatural gases into your body and causes them to affect your normal functions. And then passing out and hitting the ground doesn't sound like much fun either. I'm guessing that Sulfur Hexafluoride is a heavier gas than helium so it would take a lot more deep breaths of oxygen to get it out of your lungs. But just having it laying at the bottom of the lungs would be enough to make a person light headed. I don't think I will ever try this experiment.

Anissa, Good post. I saw on the internet that you have to hang upside down to clear the SF6 from your lungs. Not sure it it's true.

MW

Motion Detectors: The first thing I thought of when I read this article is how handy and useful this device is that goes off every time it senses infrared radiation. We got one of these after someone had stolen my mom's bike from the garage. It helps tell us if something is moving outside by the garage whether or not it is a human or an animal. I found it interesting that the device sends out pulses and uses sensors to monitor the reflection pattern. This reminds me a little bit of bats and how they sense objects around them since they are blind. This relates to class because we talked about wavelengths, frequencies, and infrared lights which is visible lights some times used with scanners.

Anissa, Well done! Good connection to everyday life! MW