Nightglow of Dystopia:
This chapter was called "Nightglow of Dystopia" it is about sodium. In the nineteenth century street lights and houses were lit up using sodium. Sodium shines at a wavelength of 589 nm. The first sodium lights were installed in Berlin and the Netherlands. Sodium was first discovered in 1801 by Sir Humphry Davy by decomposing Platinum. Sodium is the most abundant alkali metal in the salt of the earth. Sodium was also used to make fireworks. It was dull at first because it could only glow yellow but, fireworks specialists were able to add sodium and other elements to make different colors. Fireworks were very popular back then but, the colors were difficult to create using elements that weren't harmful.
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| Picture Work Cited: Sodium, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium, Wikipedia, April 7, 2014, |
Cocktails at the Pale Horse:
The next chapter was called "Cocktails at the Pale Horse" and it is about the element Thallium. This element is highly toxic. It was first introduced in 1862 at the International Exhibition held at South Kensington. He obtained a particular element from the Harz Mountains and performed experiments on it hoping to find Tellurium. However, when he examined it's wavelength he found that it was unlike anything that was ever seen before. He called it Thallium. This element was used in Agatha Christie's book "The Pale Horse" to murder many people at an inn. The rise of this book however, lead to the salvation of many real people like a nineteen month old baby girl and seventy photographic workers.
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| Picture work Cited: Thallium, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thallium, Wikipedia, April 4, 2014 |
The Light of the Sun:
This chapter is called "The Light of the Sun" and is about the elements found in space. Helium was first found when astronomers looked up at the sun through the mass spectrometer. Norman Lockyer named it helium after the Greek word Helios for sun. Up until 1895 he was mocked for his work with helium, but then it was proved that he was correct. Occultum was also found in space by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater. They were able to sketch what they thought its atoms look like and prove that it was real.
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| Picture Work Cited: Helium, Leslie Eastman, http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/09/helium-shortage-shows-big-government-solutions-are-full-of-hot-air/, Legal Insurrection, September 21, 2013 |
I never knew that helium was named for the Greek word Helios that's really interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy that street lights and houses were light using sodium; the same element used in fireworks. It's so gruesome to hear that people were killed by thallium in an inn. Also, I remember Mrs. Cerqueira talking about information in your "Light of the Sun" section. Also I like that it was named for a Greek word...pretty cool. I also love you pictures. They really help with getting the information through to me.
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