Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
Chemistry The two I like most, are often lost on most people. Poetry and Chemistry, I feel free to agree, are not popular. They are by far the two least liked topics for conversation, especially if they mix to form a combination for any gathering. But don’t listen to the humdrum majority that may say—what a pity! When something, someone or God started at zero time with a nod, staring at the absolute zero, like a monumental hero to make something of nothing— in a Big Bang, or a little binge, of opposites; like tiny dot in a pot of Positron and Electron. But these must be separated anon lest they destroy one another and revert to nothing they once were. We know the full story of Electron, but not yet where the other has gone. She is light, lithe, and charged to act. We know that for a fact. A massive Proton then came on the scene, positive, but slow and serene, looking for a mate to form a stable home, in a nice neutral Atom. They know not to go too close for comfort in marital sport, and stay a little away, afar from each other’s hair. This was Hydrogen the grand daddy from heaven to fill the universe we know so far in distant stars.
Hydrogen atom could lose the Electron to form a hydrogen ion, or gain another Electron again, to form a hydride where two electrons take a ride in the orbit around the nucleus. It was OK. But know what, a Proton could never stand another one close to it. And in a fit of extreme heat it captured an electron to form what we call a Neutron. These neutral intermediaries galore stabilize nuclei with two Protons or more, until it reaches eighty-three in another branch of nature's magic tree. We like to shorten name in acronym like “p” and “e” and “n”, for the three Proton, Electron, and Neutron, respectively. As Hydrogen homes got too hot, four of them fought to form Helium atoms, and a lot of energy, as we got and getting from the Sun every day, and continue for a long long time we pray. As the stars collapsed, and got hotter still heavier atoms formed in the till, with p’s and n’s in the nuclear dens. The number of p’s or Atomic Number, fixes identities of elements from Hydrogen to Uranium, placed in Periodic Table’s row and column, form one through ninety-two each symbolized by a letter or two. —Basudeb DasSarma West Virginia State College Institute, WV 25112
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Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 76 No. 4 April 1999 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
