Trona,+Nathaniel

8/31/10 - I read Mentos and Coke, and it was very interesting and explained it very well. I never heard of nucleation sites and was interested at how it explains how shaking a soda bottle stirs up an explosion of carbon dioxide. I also found out that mint Mentos, although it seems smooth, is actually very bumpy and porous, causing many nucleation sites to form which sends the Diet Coke shooting out in an erupting force. It's cooler to watch now that I know how it works. I can connect this to Chemistry class because this deals with carbon dioxide and other compounds, and also it has a little bit of experimenting, like when the author of the article talks about why he thinks the Mentos causes the reaction it does. I was surprised that the porous-ness of the Mentos causes the eruption, not just because of what the Mentos is composed of.

Nate, Good thoughts and connections to our class!! 5 stars! MW

9/2/10 - The article was very interesting and it made me surprised that they were considering making a new prototype for since the last one lost the weight of a fingerprint. That's pretty big stuff that doesn't happen too often, and it's very important because if measurements aren't consistent around the world, then experiments can go wrong because bad measurements can offer wrong data. I can relate this to chemistry class because measurements have to be correct and precise. I know in class we don't measure down to micrometers, but misreading measurements in class can lead to wrong data which leads to wrong answers. The most valuable point that I got from this article was the interesting ways of determining weights, whether it be Avagadro's constant or Planck's. The numbers and formulas were very confusing and it's interesting how smart one would have to be to figure it out.

Nate, The world of careful, precise measurement is a bit foreign to most of us but is taken very seriously by those that guard these treasures. 5 stars! MW

9/17/10 - I thought the movie was really interesting, but the most interesting point to me was that I never knew gasoline, methane, propane, etc., were made from crude oil. I thought that with crude oil it could be used just like that without being distilled. I can connect this to chemistry class because it reminds me of how we talked about separating salt from water in saltwater. Something that surprised me was the huge distillation factories, I never knew that distillation occurred on that scale. Another thing that interested me was diesel fuel is made from this process by collecting the hydrocarbons at the bottom with the highest boiling point. The third thing that interested me was that jet fuel comes at the top, I thought jet fuel was more heavy duty. %Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0

Nate, Well jet fuel doesn't come off the very top but it is near there. Good post! 5 stars. MW

9/27/10 - For the motion detector article, before reading I already knew that one way to make one is to have a beam of light shining and when something went by it, it sent off a signal that something was there because the beam was interrupted. Another thing I knew was the method of using a rhythm that when disrupted by an object moving by, it sends a signal that the timing was off and something's there, which is similar to the first. The last thing I knew before this was that Albert Einstein won the Noble Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect. Something I learned from the article was that the reason that a branch won't set off an alarm when a person will is because it measures the temperatures. Another thing I learned is that the reason that a person standing outside won't trigger an indoor sensor because some signals can't pass through clear glass. The last thing I learned was that bats use echo radar to determine where objects like moths are in complete darkness.

Nate, Solid post. You definitely fulfilled the prompt! 5 stars! MW

10/21/10 - All elements up to iron are created from a star's explosion. Elements heavier than iron are made when more neutrons are added to iron's nucleus.

Nate, Looks good! 5 stars. MW

12/8/10 - One thing that interested me in this article was that sugar was explosive. I never thought that this could be true because I burn sugary things all the time because my family isn't so good at baking things, and if it was in dusty air form it could explode. Another thing that was interesting to me was the was the way it talked about the firewood example. It makes sense to me that a big log doesn't burn well but little sticks do, so I could understand that if those little sticks turned into a fine dust they could explode. The third thing I observed was relevant to class. The demonstration we had with the pumpkin is much like this sugar. It can't ignite too well unless it's dust in the wind.

Nate, Somewhat poetic there at the end. Good job. 5 stars! MW

12/21/10 - One very important point in this article is that the buoyant force of an object is very small, it is .0028 pounds for every liter of air displaced. Another important point is that atmospheric pressure is lower up in the atmosphere, and even a room, because there is less air to push on the bottom of it. The most valuable point I picked is Archimedes' Principle, which states that the buoyant force acting upward on an object is equal to the weight of the fluid that is being displaced. This is an important concept because it helps find out how density plays along.

Nate, Nice phrasing! 5 stars. MW