Hunting the Elements

Think of the Past:

Before watching "Hunting the Elements" in class, I knew only a limited amount of things about the periodic table of elements. One of the things I knew was how the table was arranged. There are these things called groups and periods that organize the periodic table. Groups are the columns, while the periods are the rows. For example, Titanium is in Group 4, Period 4. Another thing I knew was the number of elements on the periodic table, which is 118. 

Think of the Present:

One thing that I learned from watching the video is how important bronze is in history and what it is made of. To start, bronze is the first man made mental alloy. Additionally, bronze played a major role in an entire age of human civilization. Bronze is made of copper and tin. Adding tin to bronze changes the properties of it. Tin also helps bronze stay stiff and sturdy. 

Think of the Future:

I found the "nuclear section" of the video very interesting and cool. One element that stood out to me was plutonium. I would like to research more about it and its properties, as well as who discovered it. Another reason that I would want to research plutonium is because plutonium was used in the movie "Back to the Future". Plutonium was used to power the Delorean and the flux capacitor, the thing that makes it travel in time. The only problem was that plutonium was hard to find and the time machine used up a lot of plutonium every time it time traveled. 

Rockets

Basic Info:

A rocket in its simplest form is a chamber enclosing gas under pressure. In order for the rocket to take off, there needs to be an opening at the end of the rocket to allow the gas to escape the rocket and thrust the rocket into the air in the opposite direction. For space rockets, gas is produced by burning propellants that are solid or liquid. Sometimes these propellants are a combination of both. A propellant is the combination of both fuel and oxidizers, in liquid or solid form, which are burned by a rocket to produce thrust. 

Newton's Laws:

Rockets tie in with Newton's Laws in many ways. Here are Newton's three laws before we get started: 1) An object in motion will stay in motion, an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. 2) Force=Mass•Acceleration (F=MA). 3) For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Now, this is the way Newton's Laws tie in with a rocket and its launch. First Law: An unbalanced force must act on the rocket to lift off or to change speed and direction while in space. Second Law: The thrust that the rocket gives off is determined by the mass of rocket fuel that is burned and how fast the gas escapes the rocket. Third Law: The motion of the rocket (reaction) is equal to and in the opposite direction of the thrust (reaction) from the engine.

Rockets and Propellants:

We did not learn about fuel and propellants last semester, but it helps to understand how rockets take off. To start, fuel is the chemical that rockets burn. For fuel to burn, there needs to be an oxidizer. An oxidizer is basically oxygen that the rocket needs because there is no oxygen in space. Solid rocket propellants are dry to the touch. Liquid propellants are often gases that are chilled until they condense into liquids. Liquid propellants have their fuel and oxidizers in seperate containers.

Photo Credit: Bill, Ingals/NASA 

Info Credit: MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (1996) "Rocket Principles" [Web] Retrieved from: http://web.mit.edu/16.00/www/aec/rocket.html; Date accessed: Jan 2015