Okay, don’t be mad at me. This is again, a repost. I have a lot of things I want to write about but for some reason I can’t get myself to put them into words. I go blank the moment I face the monitor. It’s frustrating. Anyways, I wrote this one last year, I was still in college and some of you already know how I was back then. Here it is.

+++++

Yehes, marunong na kong gumamit ng acronym, kung ganyan man ang spelling. Matagal na kong bobo sa spelling, pero ayos naman ako sa grammar, sa pagkakaalam ko. Hindi magaling, ayus lang. Naging mabusisi ako don dahil sa kahihiyang naranas ko nung 2nd year highschool dahil isa ako sa mga mahihina sa grammar. Nakwento ko na ata yon sa mga dati kong entries. Anyways, ayun. Bat ba napunta sa spelling? Pero ang naaalala ko may time nung 1st year highschool na nasali ako sa spelling bee. Ewan ko ba. Alam ba nilang tatanga tanga ako sa sppeleing?

SI16. Yehes. SI. Si. Parang nakita ko na yan sa periodic table of elements na aliw na aliw akong basahin nung mga may chem pa kame. Wahahaha. Kunware nerd. Pero nakakatuwa lang basahin yung mga numbers sa baba, yung mga atomic weight ata yun. Hindi ko naman talaga naiintindihan yun. Trip ko lang basahin.

Ngayon ko lang nalaman na ang ibig sabihin ng ‘hooky’ ay pag cut ng klase. Wala lang. Gusto ko lang ishare. Anyways, nasa school na ren, ako’y malapit na (sana) grumadweyt ng kolehiyo. Akalain mo. Parang kelan lang isa ako sa mga musmos na batang palaboy laboy sa Jollibee Lagro, kung saan kami’y madalas tumambay pag uwian.

Hindi ako mayabang, pero hindi rin ako hipokrito. Ang totoo, hindi ako naniniwalang mahirap ang kolehiyo. Siguro para saken, o baka para sa lahat, hindi ko lang nalalaman dahil marame naman akong narinig na nagreklamo para bigyan ako ng babala sa buhay kolehiyo. Pero ang totoo, hindi ako naniniwalang mahirap ang kolehiyo. Mahirap manatili sa kolehiyo. Hindi dahil mahirap mag aral, kundi mahirap ang mga dapat mong pagdaanan para makapag aral.
Para sa akin, mas mahirap umaraw araw sa mga taong iba ang kinalakihan ng sayo. Dahil sabi nga ng iba, sa highschool, parepareho kayo halos ng mga taong nakasundo mo. Dahil pareho kayo ng naranasan sa isa sa mga mahahalagang panahon ng buhay mo. Pero sa kolehiyo, ang mga kasama mo, may ibang kasama sa isa sa pinakamahalagang panahon ng buhay nila.

Nakilala mo sila na sila na. Meron ng ’sila’. Hindi ka kasama sa pagbuo ng ’sila’. Pero kahit ano pa man, alam mong may tamang pakiramdam na kahit hindi kayo sabay naging ‘kayo’, alam niyong paglipas ng panahon na magiging magkasama kayo ay matatagalan niyo ang kanya kanyang ‘kayo’.

O di kaya naman..

Hinde?

Hindi naman talaga mahirap sa kolehiyo. Siguro may konting usog, konting pikit, konting iwas, pero sa lahat, hindi paren. Paano kung malaman mong ang ’sila’ ay hindi pala ’sila’? Paano kung ang pinapangarap mong makakilala ng ‘kayo’ ay hindi mangyayari dahil sa simula palang, and ’sila’ ay hindi mo talaga nakita?

Ayan ang mahirap sa pagpapakilala. Lalo na kung hindi mo nakita.

Minsan kaya mong tumanggap ng paliwanag ng isa, na kungsakali lang, na merong ’sila’, na hindi mo nakita pero piniling paniwalaan dahil naniniwala ka na totoo ang ’sila’ na nagpaliwanag sayo na merong ’sila’.

Pero paano na ang ‘kayo’?

Ulet.

Ulet.

Kasalanan mo bang tumingala at umasa na sa pag iwan mo sa nakasanayan mo ay meron kang panibagong makakasalubong? Na handa kang isugal ang tiwala mo para umasa na base sa ’sila’, kaya mong makisali para gumawa ng ‘kayo’?

Siguro.

Pano mo ba malalaman kung ang ’sila’ na pinakilala sayo ay ang totoong ’sila’ na kilala ng mga ’sila’ pag sila sila nalang?

Maniwala ka.

Maniwala.

Dahil may manipis na pagitan ang pagiging tatanga tanga at malaki ang tiwala.

Tumayo ka sa gitna.

Wag kang matutumba, dahil isang maling apak lang, baka malaglag ka sa kaliwa, kung saan magiging tatanga tanga ka, kung kelan dapat ay pagkatiwalaan mo ang mga duda mo sa kung sino ba talaga ang ’sila’.

Wag kang matutumba, dahil isang maling apak lang, baka malaglag ka sa kanan, kung saan magkakaron ka ng tiwala, kung kelan mas dapat na naging tatangatanga ka nalang.

Balanse.. hangin.. balanse.

Kung pinili mo mang tumalon, kanan o kaliwa, ikaw na rin ang magsasabi sa sarili mo kung tama ba ang ginawa mo.

Dahil may mga ’sila’ na dapat nalang tanggapin na ganon na ’sila’.

Minsan hindi tayo pwedeng magreklamo dahil wala tayo nung nabubuo ang ’sila’.

At minsan, kailangan tanggapin na dahil sa pinili mong babagsakan sa paniniwala sa ’sila’, maaaring maiwan ka na magisip kung bakit hindi pwedeng magkaron ng ‘kayo’.

A Periodic Table Table from Wake Forest Univerity, North Carolina.

Seeing as how I’m a history teacher, seeing a really great time line is like seeing Earth from space. Buffoonery aside, it might be similar to the common bond created between a science teacher and a really well done version of the periodic table of elements.  I’m guessing.

So when I stumbled upon thismoment, I instantly thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread wrapped in dual layers of plastic (regular sliced bread isn’t that exciting to me anymore, I’ve upped my expectations).

Thismoment allows  users to create multiple moments in the time line of their lives and insert an array of media to prove to the general populous that it actually happened.  Naturally, for a history teacher, the implications of a service like this are huge.

You can view a moments I’ve made in a tech integration time line beginning with Activboard acclimation by David Freeburg.  From there, just click on over to view the rest of the moments in the time line, or view the time line at the top of the page.  The higher the bar is at the top, the more important the moment is.

The thing I like about This Moment is the user interface of it, and the fact that it can link with other web 2.0 services you have, such as Youtube, Flickr, Picasa, etc.  You can log in with your Facebook account via Facebook Connect, and if you have an iPhone, yes, there’s an app for that.

The cons, with using this with a class, is that it might take a while for students to grasp the process of how to add to their time line in a coherent sense, and then share it with others.

Another time line I’ve heard of being good is TimeGlider.  Mark Garrison over at GarrisonSites has had success with it and posts a review there.

P.S.

My favorite periodic table….

The way science should be studied.

From Pixel Fantasy’s Flickr stream

This is much more exciting than the dull poster that TOTD used to stare at during double chemistry each Saturday morning. The site is richly illustrated and the facts accompanying each element are facinating. Did you know that liquid oxgen at -183 degree C is a beautiful pale blue? Many elements are difficult, or impossible, to display. Just read what it takes to make a transparent container to display highly reactive fluorine.

http://www.periodictable.com/

I want one!

The Periodic Table from today’s BuzzFeed.

This book is part of the Investigate the Possibilities series [by Tom DeRosa and Carolyn Reeves] and is geared toward students from grade 3 to 6. Its content is about elementary chemistry and the book is packed with tons of activities. Learning is fun when you have the possibility of applying it yourself.

The book is bright in colors and includes many images to attract the eye of the child. There is information to make you think as well as observation to be made while experimenting. In total there are 20 investigations to be made by the kids while going through this book. They will discover more about chemicals, bubbles, colors, water, acids, salt, metals, electricity and much more. The teaching deals also with the faith in God. The experiments use household items and teach the why and how things work, what they are made of and where they come from. The students will also get introduce to the periodic table.

Each chapter has various sections in it going from engaging the students to explain, apply, expand and assess the information. In each lesson the student will learn to think about an aspect of chemistry and he/she will also read about the science aspect of it as well as making connection with the methods, instruments and so on. At the end of the lesson, there are questions to make sure the student has understood the information he read and learned during the lesson.

Also available are the Teacher’s Guide and the Student Journal. The Teacher’s Guide contains information on how to plan and teach the lesson as well as guidance for the teacher. It also provides the answers to the questions the students have to answer. Each page also has a copy of the page from the book so that it’s easy to know which lesson the information refers to. The Student Journal is mostly a book where the student can write down the observations made during the experiments as well as answering the questions for comprehension. There is a section called Dig Deeper where the student can jolt down some answers to the questions/challenge offered in the Dig Deeper section of the book. For example, in lesson 1 the student need to find the name of one charity whose mission is to provide clean water to people who don’t have clean water to drink. Obviously, some research is needed to find the answer.

I was a little bit anxious on how I would introduce chemistry to my kids eventually. I think this book is an answer to prayer. You see chemistry was not my strong subject when I was in high school neither when I was in cégep which is why I gave up on being a vet and went into administration to eventually go into information technology. But deep down, I always loved medicine and so on. So when I got this book and saw how fun the book has been made for children, I was very happy to have had the opportunity to review it. I look forward to do some lessons with my 3rd grader this year when we start school. This book is well taught and contains relevant information as well. I like the fact that it gives the creation perspective of things. I’m very pleased to have discovered a chemistry book that doesn’t put God aside to teach the children. The experiments look very fun to do. I am particularly looking forward to do the one in lesson 2 which requires diapers.

I strongly recommend this book to every homeschooler who are teaching 3rd to 6th grades. You won’t be disappointed for sure.

Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!]

[Editor's note: Enter today to win! Just leave a Comment to this or any post on this blog.]

Here is a nice version of the periodic table (produced jointly by the Association for the British Pharmaceutical Industry, British Petroleum, the Chemical Industry Education Centre, and the Royal Society for Chemistry) that focuses on the applications of each of the elements, rather than their chemical properties.  A simple idea, but remarkably effective in bringing the table to life.

It might be amusing to attempt something similar for mathematics, for instance creating a poster that takes each of the top-level categories in the AMS 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification scheme (or perhaps the arXiv math subject classification), and listing four or five applications of each, one of which would be illustrated by some simple artwork.  (Except, of course, for those subfields that are “seldom found in nature”. )

A project like this, which would need expertise both in mathematics and in graphic design, and which could be decomposed into several loosely interacting subprojects, seems amenable to a polymath-type approach; it seems to me that popularisation of mathematics is as valid an application of this paradigm as research mathematics.   (Admittedly, there is a danger of “design by committee“, but a polymath project is not quite the same thing as a committee, and it would be an interesting experiment to see the relative strengths and weaknesses of this design method.)   I’d be curious to see what readers would think of such an experiment.

[Update, Oct 25: A Math Overflow thread to collect applications of each of the major branches of mathematics has now been formed here, and is already rather active.  Please feel free to contribute!]

[Via this post from the Red Ferret, which was suggested to me automatically via Google Reader's recommendation algorithm.]

I feel like this component is the most important part about a History Day project, the topic.  I mean, you will basically be spending all your time on this one particular thing so I hope that it interests you, that it fits the theme well, and that it is narrow in focus.  History Day themes are usually broad enough to allow you to pick an array of topics.  However, sometimes your interests don’t match up with the year’s theme.  For example, if you are interested in Japanese-interment camps and the theme is “Science and Technology in History”, I don’t think that is going to work.  But don’t get discouraged.  Go search around on the internet or talk to someone who is knowledgeable, I am sure you can find something that would interest you as well as meet the year’s theme.  Narrowing your focus may seem like something you will never achieve, but just give it time and I promise you will eventually get there.  Most research topics begin about big topics with big questions.  As you start to gather more and more information about your topic, it will be easier for you to focus on one thing.

Here’s a tip about narrowing your focus, if you pick a state or local issue, usually it is already narrowed in its focus.

There are two things that I would stay away from when choosing a topic: a recent topic and a topic that is too complex.  If the topic is recent, such as the election of President Obama, it may be hard to find primary sources.  Also, recent topics do not allow you to see the entire impact and significance because its impact is not necessarily finished yet.  A good way to tell if a topic is too recent is if it happened in the last 20 years, then it is relatively recent and I would choose a different one.  Resources on complex topics can be hard to understand, for example the creation of certain chemicals.  I know personally, the periodic table scares me.  Even though it maybe a good topic, it may not be good for me.  Also keep in mind, if you are doing a project that relies heavily on visual aides (in other words you people doing exhibits and documentaries) it maybe hard to do a topic that happened before the 1850s due to the fact that the camera was not invented yet.

-Ali

Element: WOMEN

Symbol: WO+

Atomic mass: Accepted as 53.6 Kg; isotopes may vary from 40-200 kg.

Occurrence: Copious quantities in all urban areas.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

1. Boils at room temperature

2. Freezes without any known reason.

3. Melts if given special treatment.

4. Bitter, if incorrectly used.

5. Sweet as Honey if given a proper treatment.

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

1. Have great affinity for Gold, Silver and a range of precious stones
and absorbs great quantities of expensive substances.

2. May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for no known reason.

3. Most powerful money reducing agent known to man.

COMMON USES

1. Highly ornamental, good samples can increase your social value.

2. Can be great aid to administration.

TESTS

1. Pure specimen turns rosy pink when happy.

2. Turns green when placed behind a better specimen.

This is a useful app for educators and students of chemistry…

Periodic Table Explorer 1.7.1

The PTE is a brand new way of exploring the periodic table. It has the same functions as the original Periodic Table software plus many more, it also has a completely new and innovative user interface that allows an almost unlimited amount of control over the display.

Each display can be opened any number of times, and can show different information. The size, shape and position of each display can be customised too. You can save your favourite layouts for retrieval at a later date.

Features include:

* Detailed information on each element
* Details of isotopes and allotropes
* Details of important compounds
* Details of reactions with water, air, halogens and acids
* Images for each element (300 images in total)
o including valence and crystal stucture diagrams
* Glossary of terms
* Graphs of important element properties
* Biographies for the important scientists and element discoverers
* View the states of the elements at any temperature (from 0 – 6000k)
* XP style support
* Search through all content
* Electron shell diagrams of each element (including orbitals)
* Atomic width diagram
* Element names and the majority of the applications buttons are now available in eight different languages.

You may visit its website here.

The Periodic Table of Science Fiction bases stories of each of the elements. Here’s the beginning of Hydrogen:

Time agents like to rendezvous at famous disasters. It goes with the personality. They don’t trust you to remember the date otherwise.

Which was why I met Ivan at Lakehurst Naval Air Base, on the day the Hindenburg was due to burst into flame.

More here. They’re just over halfway, with 59 done.

This will be appearing on one of my walls very soon <design geek>

{via yay eevryday}

What do you wish for your children?  So many things…love, health, joy, to pursue something that lights a flame in their hearts…..those things, yes, …. but I want to wish for them an obsessed curiosity, a desire to discover, that comes only from reality…not from artifice, the whitewash on the sepulchre we call curriculum….

For now, I’m going to lay down organization learning for a while….I want to wish for their organic, minds of light for a time…

I wish first for them …. wonder.   Wonder is amazement at the way in which nature works, at the way your little dog looks up at you with obvious love…what is she thinking…when I watch her closely I see I think a mind…maybe not like mine, but one that knows, a heart that loves… and I am caught up in wonder at the miracle of this little animal…I study her movements, her expressions, her eyes, her obvious play, her own curiosity at the little bug she chases, but does not harm, and I form questions…remember the “Golden Thread”?  I wish for my children the wonder of the Milky Way….to have that first deep gut-thrill as they see it reaching across the sky like a great shimmering celestial ribbon…ethereal, eternal….I want them to wonder… at the energy that drives our bodies and realize it is the same energy that drives the stars….formed differently but the same….I want them to wonder at their human bodies…. that they can understand the miracle of the kidney…how it recognizes blood chemical levels so they can be adjusted so …we…can…live. I want them to wonder at sodium potassium channels so they understand the miracle of life…. I’ve never seen anyone wonder at a worksheet, or at a powerpoint….but I have shown kids from the dismal city the brilliance that is the Milky Way…I’ve watched the wonder that is so very close to fear as they see the night sky as it really is for the first time…I’ve watched their faces as they hear the voice of wildness itself in the howl of a wolf…. I’ve never seen the wonder of a worksheet… I’ve never seen the wonder of yet more notes on a PowerPoint presentation…wonder gutted…. wonder mortally wounded…. why would you wonder when you havent see the miracle..

I wish for them curiosity…. the curiosity I felt as a boy running through the Piney Woods of East Texas….the absolute outrageous curiosity I felt when I saw the green light in the darkness….first so dim it can’t be there… but it was….Foxfire….then in the light just fungi…How, with a capital W…rotting wood….for a time I learned everything there was to learn about bioluminescence….How?  How does it work…. Why when I lay on my back as a boy looking up at the Milky Way did I not fall out into the fearsome cold of space…out There, with a capital ”T”.   Why do we not fall into the depths of space for when we are out “There” nothing is between us and the edge of the universe…but nothing…What saves us from a nightmarish fate…falling into space… a force not truly understood…  Gravity….gravity-does anyone really know what it is?….  What, with a capital W, dragged me underwater 50 yards or more when I was eighteen and immortal…with a fishing stringer attached to a metal chain around my waist….I received my baptism of mortality that day…when my feet could not touch bottom and “What” was out “There”….after terror came curiosity…today I am obsessed by sharks…creatures of terrible wonder…deserving of curiosity…the knowledge of ….”what”….of “out there unseen” came and changed to obsession that has taken me to places I would never have gone.

Obsession…..I wish for my children obsession….the obsession to answer my fear so I swam out beyond the third bar where I lay back supported by the green waters of the Gulf of Mexico….the same waters that offered life to “my” personal shark….perhaps offering my fear to the ocean….within a week I knew the shark species of the entire Gulf of Mexico…but more…were there Great White Sharks….can a shark actually be named “Bull”….when I saw the first one that I caught….the first Bull Shark….I left that beautiful animal in its home….it was a living, breathing miracle….when I saw it, I wanted to know, but also to give the opportunity to live back to it….so I could “know” without guilt….Black tips, Nurse, Hammerhead, Great Hammerhead, Sand….Obsession to this day….now I have been blessed to touch the skin of a Great White….to feel the roughness, but also the life…obsession…brought me to the Pacific to find them…

I wish for my children understanding then desire…..to find that the paint which covers our walls can be measured with the wonderful work of lines, angles, and formulas…to understand what math is for….to understand what they do…mathmaticians and why they do it… I became a boy who understood that the flight of a baseball can be described, even predicted….to understand that rowboats respond to the math of balance…fulcrums, weight, balance beams, centerlines …..that a boat is a gymnast wrestling with the physics of equivalent gravitational attraction that must be Balanced, with a capital “B”…

I wish for them freedom from the artifice of learning that is curriculum….I wish for them expression of the way their DNA made them…..according to the Plan….according to the information that is their personal DNA….that I believe is a plan….that the same energy that holds together the universe holds together their bodies…that before there was the universe there was nothing….darkness and void…all the energy in the universe was in one point…existing…but not existing….then the universe Was….with a capital “W” …in billionths of a second, no trillionths of a second…the universe “Was”…to know that the universe still “Is”…beyond the Hubble Deep Field…the universe “Is”,   still in its outer reaches, unimaginable reaches of time and space ….where the universe “Is” still being Created….that galaxies, stars and worlds are still being Created…yes with a capital “C”….I am too filled with the wonder that is statistics to think randomness….chance…odds….too great to be possible….

I wish for my children Connection…to realize after the wonder…then the curiosity….then the understanding….the connections….that the reality of fire….oxidation….keeps our bodies warm….without our thought…that we are organized…..so we are connected to the fires of volcanos, the reactors that are stars, the warmth in the body of the kitten held and stroked….that the same energy that drives the Earth through its orbit is the same energy that, in changed form, motivates the skeleton that holds the precious bodies of our children together….

I wish for my children to be amazed….that we are created of light, the elements…..so we really are created of the dust of the Earth, the dust of the Earth that is the periodic table made tangible…real….amazed….that photons of light energize reactions in the leaves of plants….that the living tissue of every plant incorporates light….plants are light made real in form…so then are we light made real in form but in this form….intelligence, thought, soul….”souls of light” we are….and as the plants,  those miraculous creations of light, creations of star shine, works of Krebs and his cycle, birthed of nuclear  fusion give their transformed energy to our bodies….so that we take the nutrients of the soil from them and raw energy from the light ….. so we become creations of the light and of the dust of the Earth….

intelligence and thought made of dust and light…

Finally, I wish them to return to wonder…..that in the ferocity of the instant of creation we were formed billions of years ago, we were already there….planned….as we could not be here without…..the moment….the chaos having been made into order…. that we have labeled the Big Bang…that I label “Let There Be Light”…. 

No, I’ve never seen wonder at a worksheet, or divine revelation of the “Connection” through the questions at the back of the chapter…

I’ve only seen wonder when enough chaos, enough reading, enough absorption of thought communicated down the centuries by dye on paper…and the experience of touch, the experience of taste, of smell, of the fear of falling off the Earth as you look up into the night…the realization….eventually become knowledge…that sticks.

When you are next outside at night, look up, realize that nothing is between us and the most fearsome fall….up….into space….that nothing is between you and eternity…..so gravity is here to hold us to our speck of dust…that we are created from….the Earth….we have faith in what holds us…..but we still wonder….

Oh, I do wish, I do wish that every child had freedom to explore the strange avenues given to their minds when the time is right, not when the bell says it’s time to go to the next class…..wonder, curiosity, obsession, amazement, realization, then real knowledge…..so delicate, so easily crushed, …..  

thirst…I wish for them thirst….thirst for “It”, for knowledge, for what lies ahead over the next hill, around the next bend, and for some I believe, sooner than we imagine, across the reaches of space to the next star…..

I wish for my children made of light and dust….my star children, beings of light….that they journey through the universe with a divine obsession to know…obsession to discover…. and finally obsession to know the source….

I wish again freedom for my star children….freedom from worksheets, from bells and boxes of cinderblocks, from artificially created and carefully designed elements, units and tests…

So they can become true star children, the children of Gods’ moment of creation, ….my children of Gods periodic table, of His dust, of His plan…rather than our organized and artificial plan…

Star children…free to “become”….

i loved the simplicity of this old school type book, found via uppercase journal

i’ve seen this around for a while now and finally got round to sourcing it at squidspot.  birthday list please!

these are another bit of design prettyness i keep spying, gorgeous type pillows from Bonjour Mon Coussin.

i came across these lovely pictures via flicker, i love the industrial style letters, the compositions are really inspiring too.

]]> http://sandrobatista.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/periodic-table-visualization-methods/ Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:00:00 +0000 Sandro Batista http://sandrobatista.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/periodic-table-visualization-methods/

How you can visualize something?

Here you can find a lot of different methods to use depending on what you pretend.

There is a sample on which method, just move your mouse over the boxes.

View Full Album

A small sample of the 100-plus feature articles that I wrote, under the pseudonym Rusty Rockets, for the (mostly irreverent) science and technology site Science A Go Go.

_____POP Goes The Planet

_____Botanic Mechanics Celebrate 150 Year Long Experiment

_____Bow To Your Insect Overlords

_____Sexual Success And The Schizoid Factor

_____Artificial Intelligence In The Garden Shed

_____Can The 10,000-Year Clock Save Humanity?

_____Was The Missing Link A Tripping Chimp?

_____Could Tempel 1 Harbour The Seeds Of Life?

_____The Universe As Magic Roundabout: Part I
_____The Universe As Magic Roundabout: Part II

_____Periodic Puzzling

By Annie

As I said in the original Knerdy Knits post, I’m a pretty big nerd.  I always find a lot of cool nerdy projects while I’m perusing the internet for inspiration, and I think it would be a shame not to share them with you here.

Not all of these projects are knits, but they are all nerdy (or knerdy – silent k).  Click the photos to view the original projects.  I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

Star Wars Cupcakes by Spool Sisters

Periodic Table Sweater by This and That

Reboot and Escape Coasters by Merit Market

Yoda Hat by Dollar Store Crafts

Golden Snitch by Kat Knits

Green Lantern Sweater by Chris Wass

Sony Playstation iPhone Case by Rabbit Rampage

Gameboy Phone Case by maedchenmitherz

Houston, TX – Saturday (September 19th) @ 5:00 pm

Class:  Joel Dejean, On the Geometry of the Periodic Table

Audio:  091909_joel_geometry_periodic_table.mp3

Filtration. Separation. Solution. remains atop the leaderboard, but the Jammie Dodgers continue to chip away at the lead and are just 8 points back with two weeks remaining in the Quiz Cash contest.

The Dirty Dixies and Chasin’ Trivia had solid rounds, while We Suck proved they don’t — at least not during the final round that saw the team correctly answer 8 out of 10 questions plus the bonus.

Jammie Dodgers won both rounds of beer.

Trivial tidbits from the night included:

• The only letter that does not appear on the Periodic Table is “J.”
• Ulysses S. Grant was president when Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game
• The seven brightest starts in the constellation Ursa Major are better known as the Big Dipper.

Standings:

1. Filtration. Separation. Solution. – 282 points
2. Jammie Dodgers – 274
3. Dirty Dixies – 263
4. Chasin’ Trivia – 248
5. I am John Gault – 211
6. Guys & Dolls – 205
7. Zoinks! – 154
8. We Suck – 149
9. Golden Girls Tribute Band (Solo Act) – 115
10. Super Cyclists – 71
11. Blue Sky – 71
12. The Cooties – 58
13. Oh Piss Boy! – 28
14. I Have an Embarrassing Rash – 23

In any culture, the people will over time develop their own phrases and words which are unique to them. They tend to be words and phrases which they understand, but outsiders may not. Those in close proximity to this culture will understand some phrases and words, but not all. Such is the way of language!

So I present to you the Periodic Table of SL Abbreviations and Emoticons to remind you on the true meaning, so we can hold our language close and dear to us.

Read this entry over at Metaversally Speaking..!

My Periodic Table sweater has taken on a life of its own. It’s fascinating to see its lifecycle on the Web. By the way, not every one likes the sweater. I learned to ignore nasty comments.

As far as I can tell, this is the progress my sweater took:

1. Sister Diane of Craftypod tweeted it on August 10, 2009.

2. Rachel Hobson picked up the tweet and posted the sweater on Craftzine on August 11.

3. Neatorama picked it up on August 11 from Craftzine.

4. Cory Doctorow posted it to Boing Boing (even has its own verb, “boing-boinged”) on August 12.

From this point the chronology gets a little hazy…

4. German knitting forum on August 12.

5. Geekologie on August 13.

6. B3tq newsletter on August 14.

7. Friday Randomness on August 14.

8. Makezine on August 14.

9. Discover Magazine in September (not sure of date when the slideshow went live).

As of this morning that page had 15,900 hits and the Flickr photo, 382 hits.

Spawn of Periodic Table Sweater: The Shawl

I am truly grateful to Gilding the Silly for undertaking to complete the Periodic Table of the Elements on a shawl. I have to hang my head in shame and say that when I knitted the sweater years ago, in the days before Wikipedia, I had no idea that new elements had been discovered in the 1990s, so the last row of elements is incomplete. I had no desire to reknit the sweater, so I’m very glad that Gilding is doing just that, on a Bond knitting frame. She is working the plain stockinette fabric with stripes and duplicate-stitch embroidering the divider lines and letters. Also, she is working the Periodic Table sideways, which fits the dimensions much better. (That should make it easier to update IUPAC approves more elements!)

Interactive Periodic Table at DePauw University

    As I mentioned yesterday, my journey back to Utah from my fellowship in Philadelphia was eventful and too much to write about in a single blog post, so this is about the second phase of my journey. This part mostly revolved around the Periodic Table of the Elements, as I stopped at DePauw University at the Percy Julian Science Center to photograph and videotape an interactive periodic table display created by Max Whitby and Theo Gray, then traveled to Champaign, Illinois to interview Theo himself.

    After visiting the Drake Oil Well on Monday, Aug. 31, I ditched my plans to travel northwest to Lake Erie and Kirtland, Ohio and instead traveled due south on PA 8 through Oil City to I-80, then west to Youngstown and I-76, then west to Akron, Ohio and I-71, then southwest to Columbus (which I skirted around on the belt route), then west on I-70 past Dayton and finally found a cheap motel just east of Indianapolis. The next morning I traveled north around Indianapolis and was going to take I-74 directly to Champaign, but decided to visit the DePauw University installation first (I remembered I had gained an hour passing through the time zone change to Central time). So I exited immediately, zig-zagged through a couple of small towns west of Indianapolis, then caught US 40 heading southwest, then PA 240 into Greencastle, IN. 

Part of the Interactive Periodic Table at DePauw University

    DePauw University is fairly compact, but considering its size and location in a smallish farming town, it boasts some impressive alumni, including Percy Julian, one of the foremost black chemists of his day. A documentary about him recently aired on PBS, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation helped with the research as they hold his personal papers. DePauw has named their new science center after him, and have installed a wooden interactive periodic table display overlooking the fourth floor atrium. Each element of the table is a cube with a sample of that element (as far as that is possible – obviously, the radioactive elements and the synthetic elements can’t be displayed). A computer is installed in the table with touch controls that allow the selection of an element and information and videos about it to be displayed as well. I photographed the table and used my motorized pan-tilt head to videotape panning across the table, but this was interrupted by a class change and hordes of students tromping past my camera. Once things had calmed down again, I finished the pan, packed up, and drove up to I-74 and on to Champaigne, IL. 

Periodic Table, designed by Theo Gray

    I had set up an interview with Theo Gray, who is the co-founder of Wolfram Research, Inc. – the company that makes Mathematica software, which I have greatly desired to have a copy of ever since I saw it demonstrated at teacher conferences back when I taught science and math classes. He got into collecting elements accidentally. He’s always been interested in chemistry, and even started out majoring in it in college before he got into computer programming. When his company reshuffled their office space to make room for a conference area, he realized they would need a conference table and thought it would be fun to make a literal periodic table of the elements. As he was building it (he is an excellent carpenter as well), he realized that using different types of wood to represent the families of elements would be a problem in Illinois’ humid climate; different woods would expand at different rates and cause the table to crack. So he left the tiles of each element unattached. Then he got the idea – since the tiles can be removed, he should make a sample area under each one to contain a sample of the element. Then he had to go out and collect the samples.

Gold samples underneath the gold tile

    Well, years later he is now an expert at collecting the elements and writes a column about it in Popular Science magazine called Gray Matters, and has developed a series of outrageous chemical demonstrations (such as heating his hot tub with quicklime) that have been videotaped. He has created photographic periodic table charts, a book, etc. In addition to his table, he has displays in his office of some of the more interesting objects that contain various elements in them and that use properties of those elements.

Samples of the elements on display in Theo Gray's office

    Theo was very gracious in letting me, an amateur, invade his office for a couple of hours in the middle of a busy work day. After finishing the interview, I traveled south from Champaign and picked up I-70 again, then traveled west and crossed the Mississippi at St. Louis (right at sunset again), then headed south for about an hour to the old lead belt and camped at St. Francois State Park. Although I had used the interstates for most of the day, I got off them enough in Indiana to get a feel for the countryside. From here on, I would be staying mostly on the back roads.

Samples of silicon and bismuth in Theo Gray's office

Different woods used to represent families of elements

Some people were not happy with just examples for Lewis dot diagrams, so I am posting official rules for them.  One thing I did forget on Friday is that, for periods 4 and 5, which have a maximum of 18 spots available for valence electrons, you still use what is called the OCTET RULE, which is a close as you get to a hard-and-fast rule in chemistry.  Basically this says that, although there are 18 spots, the 10 that are NOT like the ones for the valence shell for periods 2 and 3 get filled first, while the 8 that ARE like the ones for the valence shell of periods 2 and 3 get filled last.  This means you only have to worry about these 8.  So:

Tin, Sn, is just like carbon:  four electron dots, one on each side.  So is every element in this group.

Similarly, every element in the nitrogen group has five dots, every element in the oxygen group has six dots, and every element in the halogens has seven dots.  To get the placement of the dots for these groups, follow this sequence:

1.  Start at the TOP and go around the symbol COUNTERCLOCKWISE, placing a dot on each side.

2.  Go around again until you have the number of dots needed for that group (see above).

Two cautionary notes:

- This strategy does not work for groups II and III  !!!

- Remember that if you have an ION instead of an element, you will have a different number electrons.  For example, the CL- ion will have 8 electrons (dots) instead of 7, and the Ca2+ ion will not have any dots!

Here is a site where you can check your answers and get a look at how we will use Lewis structures for compounds:  http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/hframe.html

Here is the Ppt. from Friday:  Review_of_the_Periodic_Table

And here is the outline for unit:  Chemistry_Outline

I am sad to report that a mass murder has occurred today at Fort Hood, Texas.Twelve people were killed and 31 wounded when gunmen opened fire at the massive Fort Hood Army Base in Texas just after 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

More casualties are expected to be reported in the coming hours. One of the gunmen was also reportedly killed.

The motive for the bloodbath was unknown.

A serviceman stationed at Fort Hood who asked to remain anonymous reported: “I heard the emergency announcement over the speakers outside and saw people rushing to get indoors.

In our office we’re okay but we’re hearing about the deaths. It’s horrible and very shocking.

“We are still on lockdown. I am hearing that at least nine people may be dead. This is so terrible and frightening.”

The F.B.I. is dispatching a group of agents to investigate this heinous crime.

There were two scenes for this crime,the first shooting began at about 1:30 p.m. at a personnel and medical processing office. The facility, called a Soldier Rating and Processing center, handles administrative details for soldiers.

Reports are stating that  two shooters were apparently involved. There was no immediate word on who they were, nor on identities of the dead.

 The second incident took place at a theater on the sprawling base.Another Army official identified that site as the Howze Theater.

An official, who requested anonymity to discuss the  evolving incident, said a graduation had been scheduled for 2 p.m. at the theater.

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson said in a statement: “I am shocked and saddened by today’s outburst of violence at Fort Hood that has cost seven of our brave service members their lives and has gravely injured others.

“My heart goes out to their loved ones.”

The suspects were in military uniform, witnesses said.

No reasoning has been discovered at this time for these shootings, but they should be viewed as an attack against Amereica.If it is discovered that this is a group from within our citizens, then whatever the caused them, or encouraged them to attack our soldiers within our borders should be looked upon as an act of treason.

I hope that the neocon republican terrorist will not make this inevitable situation any worse than they have created.They have preyed upon the weak-minded of their ilk, and this blood is undoubtedly in their collective hands.

The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan,an Army officer. Two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended,reported Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone ,to the AP news service .

ABC news is reporting that President Obama called the Fort Hood shootings a “horrific outburst of violence.”

“It if difficult enough to lose” soldiers overseas, but said it is “horrifying that they should lose their lives at an Army base in the U.S.,” he said

To view the aftermath of their deeds,do not got to Fox news, but view it here,courtesy of the Associated Press….

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/11/05/2009-11-05_army_base_massacre_at_least_seven_people_dead_in_mass_shooting_at_fort_hood_in_t.html

UPDATE…It is being reported that the shooter is not one of the deceased.He is in custody….