Groundhog Day Birthday

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Someone very dear to all of us is having a birthday today.

That's right, everyone's favourite android, Brent Spiner, turns 57 today.

Happy birthday, Brent.

[e of pi]

Statement to go make a wish. Sorry, been in the chat. Happy birthday!

[Opium]

Woah.

He's my parents age.

Weird.

Happy Birthday!

[KillerGodMan]

Happy Birthday to ye,
You live in the sea,
You eat little fishies,
But the big ones eat ye!

[Chancellor Valium]

"Hipi Hapi Bththdth, thuthda bththdy!", as I always say :D

[Zeke]

Woah.

He's my parents age.

Geez, I thought you meant Sa'ar.

[Chancellor Valium]

Woah.

He's my parents age.

Geez, I thought you meant Sa'ar.

That would be worrying, and utterly illogical.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Geez, I thought you meant Sa'ar.

Remind me to kill you multiple times in the near future. :P

The guy who sits next to me in the lab has been giving me grief for the past week about being 26 (he's a fresh-faced 23). Everyone else thinks I'm young.

Dude needs to learn a little respect for his elders.

[Chancellor Valium]

Easy way to give him that. "Accidentally" spill some water on his stool, then get him to drop some potassium and watch the fireworks :twisted:

[Derek]

Or sodium.

As a girl in my high school chemistry class once asked "If that's how sodium and water react, why don't the oceans explode?"

[Chancellor Valium]

Or sodium.

As a girl in my high school chemistry class once asked "If that's how sodium and water react, why don't the oceans explode?"

Shh! Not so loud! If the universe realised... :shock: :cry:

[whoiam]

I could explain why it doesn't, if you'd like?

[e of pi]

I think he was kiding. I could explain.

[whoiam]

oooh, you must have been awake in chemistry, too.

[e of pi]

Yep. :)

[Opium]

Tell us already!

[Alexia]

The guy who sits next to me in the lab has been giving me grief for the past week about being 26 (he's a fresh-faced 23). Everyone else thinks I'm young.

I'm 22.

*takes a big breath*

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD :wink:

Ok, I'm done :wink:

[e of pi]

Tell us already!

It's simple. Sodium is in the oceans as part of NaCl. It's reactive tendancies are stopped by the fact that, with it's ionic bond, it has a full shell of valence electrons.

[whoiam]

heh... not as awake as you thought? Sodium Chloride dissociates into ions in the water. Of course, the sodium no longer has it's outer electron - having 'donated' it to the chlorine - and so it can no longer react with the water as such. Instead, the sodium and chlorine ions just form complexes with the water molecules. This being how they dissolve in the water, y'see.

What e of pi was describing was salt's reaction in already saturated water - i.e., to remain salt and gather at the bottom of the container/ocean. ((the reason it has an explosive reaction with water in the first place is that the lone outer electron gets 'donated' to the oxygen if there is no chlorine (or equivalent) for it to react with. This forces the oxygen atom to lose the bond to one of it's hydrogen atoms, releasing pure, hot hydrogen. Guess what happens when large quantities of hot, flammable gas are released into the air?))

[e of pi]

I got the idea accross. It didn't have the ability to react because of already having reacted with the Cl.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

. ((the reason it has an explosive reaction with water in the first place is that the lone outer electron gets 'donated' to the oxygen if there is no chlorine (or equivalent) for it to react with. This forces the oxygen atom to lose the bond to one of it's hydrogen atoms, releasing pure, hot hydrogen. Guess what happens when large quantities of hot, flammable gas are released into the air?))

2Na(s) + 2H2O --> 2Na+(aq) + H2(g) + 2OH¯(aq) + heat, light, fizzes

NaCl(s) + H2O --> Na+(aq) + Cl¯(aq) + H2O

Na(s) + Cl2(g) --> KABOOM!

Being a chemistry major has to be good for something. Now if I could only figure out how to do super- and subscript...

Basically...elemental sodium reacts very readily with any sort of electronegative species - like chlorine or oxygen-containing species. Thermodynamically, Na(s) is very high in energy - which is bad. It loses this energy by reacting to form a more stable species - ionic sodium. The energy lost in this process is what's reponsible for all the fizzing and dancing and exploding. Exploding hydrogen gas is another matter entirely - it would probably send a lot of superheated air, hot water, sodium hydroxide (lye) and glass fragments at high velocities throughout the general vicinity.

/the more you know...
//Mr. Science mode OFF

[Alexia]

2Na(s) + 2H2O --> 2Na+(aq) + H2(g) + 2OH¯(aq) + heat, light, fizzes

Fizzes? Effervesces, dah-ling.

I do, however, approve of the word kaboom.

[Derek]

2Na(s) + 2H₂O --> 2Na⁺(aq) + H₂(g) + 2OH¯(aq) + heat, light, fizzes

NaCl(s) + H₂O --> Na⁺(aq) + Cl¯(aq) + H₂O

Na(s) + Cl₂(g) --> KABOOM!

Being a chemistry major has to be good for something. Now if I could only figure out how to do super- and subscript...
< sup > does superscript.
< sub > should do subscript, but apparently, the boards haven't been configured to allow that.

[Zeke]

< sup > came up at one point, < sub > hadn't yet. I'll add it.