23 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
An Elegant Complex Description of Fire
The atoms like each other to different degrees. Oxygen, for instance in the air, would like to be next to carbon, and if they get near to each other, they snap together. If they’re not too close though, they repel and they go apart, so they don’t know that they could snap together. It’s just as if you had a ball, it was trying to climb a hill and there was a hole it could go into, like a volcano hole, a deep one. It’s rolling along, it doesn’t go down in the deep hole, because if it...
1 From Richard Feynman, making the process of burning wood seem wondrous.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Illusion of Taste
When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking, is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when the sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turns causes a set... 1 
notes
notesWhen we taste sweetness, our tongues are not responding to the C, O, or H, but to the molecule.
13 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
The Creation of Carbon in Stars
The first step occurs when older stars start to accumulate helium, which is produced when two hydrogen nuclei collide and fuse with each other. This fusion is how stars create the energy that warms us. Two helium atoms can in turn collide to form beryllium, an atom whose nucleus contains four protons. Once beryllium is formed, it could in principle fuse with a third helium nucleus to form carbon. But that doesn't happen, because the isotope of beryllium that is formed decays almost immediatel...Requires a very delicate balance of natural laws. If the strong nuclear force were to change by as little as 0.5 percent, there would be no carbon or oxygen in the Universe.
09 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
The Uselessness of Nitrogen in the Atmosphere
My 165-pound body consists of about 110 pounds of oxygen, 30 pounds of carbon, 16 pounds of hydrogen, 6 pounds of nitrogen, and 3 pounds of everything else. Basic stuff, mostly, the stuff of water and air. You'd think we could get almost everything we need to build our bodies by taking deep breaths and gulps of water. But it's not quite that simple. Consider those 6 pounds of nitrogen in my body. Our cells build proteins by stringing together chemical units called amino acids, and every amino... 1 notes
notesRaymo describes how many pounds of each element there are in his body, and why, despite them mostly all existing in the air we breath, they are bound up in molecules so that we cannot access them.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Carbon Dating
Of all the elements, carbon is the one that seems most indispensable to life - the one without
which life on any planet is hardest to envisage. This is because of carbon's remarkable capacity for
forming chains and rings and other complex molecular architectures. It enters the food web via
photosynthesis, which is the process whereby green plants take in carbon dioxide molecules from
the atmosphere and use energy from sunlight to combine the carbon atoms with water to make
sugars. All the car... 1 notes
notesHow it works.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Carbon Dating
Of all the elements, carbon is the one that seems most indispensable to life - the one without
which life on any planet is hardest to envisage. This is because of carbon's remarkable capacity for
forming chains and rings and other complex molecular architectures. It enters the food web via
photosynthesis, which is the process whereby green plants take in carbon dioxide molecules from
the atmosphere and use energy from sunlight to combine the carbon atoms with water to make
sugars. All the car... 1 notes
notesHow it works.
