Category: Chemistry

The Problem With Super Massive Black Holes

Leave a comment

Super massive black holes have a fundamental problem in that not enough time has passed since the creation of the universe to account for their massive size. This acute time crunch is because the universe has a finite value of only 13,700,000,000 (13.7 billion) years. It is theorized that the reason super massive black holes can become larger than what time permits is because they have a colossal head start due to the fact that they may be birthed directly from a cloud of gas, a phenomena referred to as “direct collapse”. These molecular clouds collapse under their own gravity, and as they collapse, fragmentation occurs as more densely packed areas collapse more quickly. Nuclear fusion begins next and a star is thus created. If a giant gas cloud collapses without making a star, it would form a gas disc instead, allowing the mass to flow into the center very rapidly, creating a black hole instead which is essentially a vortex upon an immense scale

The Reason Life Upon Earth Migrated From the Ocean Onto Land

Leave a comment

Billions of years ago when the first living organisms started harnessing the energy of the sun through photosynthesis, they began producing a waste product which was oxygen. When oxygen rises high up into the atmosphere, it transforms into ozone which is why the Earth has a thin protective layer of ozone which alongside the magnetic field, helps protect the Earth from the violent ultraviolet radiation spewed out by the sun. As plants, microbes, and fungi migrated from the water to land, even more oxygen was produced, extending the ozone layer to become much more formidable. This was the catalyst for life migrating onto dry land which occurred 450,000,000 – 500,000,000 (450 million – 500 million) years ago during the Paleozoic Era, specifically during the Ordovician and Silurian periods

The Condition of the Earth After the Chicxulub Asteroid Collision Which Caused the Extinction of Dinosaurs

Leave a comment

Immediately after the Chicxulub Asteroid collided with the Earth, heat from the fireball produced reached temperatures of 5500 degrees Celsius and produced a shockwave which broke the speed of sound, causing gale force winds equivalent to a hurricane. Everything within 965 kilometers was instantly decimated. Within 11 minutes of impact, the sky began to darken as debris which had been pushed up into the atmosphere started to settle back down. As these small spheres the size of a grain of sand descended back down to Earth, they heated up upon re-entry, identical to that of an asteroid, which provided the illusion of billions of simultaneous shooting stars. The energy produced during this re-entry barrage of heat was more intense than the sun for a brief period of time and made the sky glow red, as if it was comprised of liquid magma. This debris reflected heat back towards the Earth and effectively caused the Earth to act as an enormous radiator. To add to this damage, wildfires began sprouting up due to the intense temperature which caused heat and smoke to fill the atmosphere, compounding the damage already done. Strong winds helped perpetuate these fires and because so much of the Earth was affected, it only took a few hours to become globalized, engulfing the entire Earth in a mass fire which burned hotter than a regular fire due to the inability to dissipate heat sideways. In addition to this, gypsum which contains sulphur, blocked the sun and cooled the Earth over the long term. Gypsum had a seismic effect upon the world’s oceanic ecosystems as ocean acidification occurred due to sulphuric rain being produced by the gypsum within the atmosphere. The reflecting of the sun caused 75% of all plants to die as the Earth only received as much light during mid day as what is present during a cloudy, moonless night of the modern day

The Insect Used to Produce Ink Throughout History

Leave a comment

The andricus kollari wasp in particular has played a significant role throughout human history as it is one of the main ingredients of ink. Crushed andricus kollari wasp galls are crushed and mixed with water, then added to crushed iron sulphate and gum Arabic to produce a cost effective and extremely long lasting ink. This specific type of ink is the most important ink used during the last 1000 years of European and subsequently western history as its indelible and essentially ever lasting whether just written or having been dried for hundreds of years. This incredible ink was used to write the Magna Carta and the American Declaration of Independence, has brought forth the recorded musical genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach, was used to produce the artwork of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn and Leonardo da Vinci, and was utilized to produce the theories of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin

How Flames Were Artificially Produced for Opera Productions During the 18th Century

Leave a comment

During the 18th century within opera and theater productions, stage doors which would lead a character to Hell achieved simulating the flames of Hell with brandy which would be placed into a container and lit on fire due to the fact that during the period, brandy was the brightest glowing flame available because of it’s high alcohol content. Once the brandy was burning bright, a powder referred to as “lycopodium” was blown across the flames to create an intense illumination, creating a fireball of sorts. It was in truth a very dangerous special effect to achieve because of the wooden sets, the actors involved, and the enclosure of the theatre itself. Most of those who performed the pyrotechnics for operas and plays during this period were ex-military, often soldiers who understood how these chemicals worked in depth as rocket technology was at the cutting edge of warfare during the era

The Inability of the U.S. Government to Enforce Safety Regulations for Firearms and the Consequences of This

Leave a comment

In the U.S., firearms are one of the few products which are exempt from federal consumer product safety regulations. This exemption derives from the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972 which explicitly prevents the Consumer Product Safety Commission from regulating firearms and ammunition. As a direct result, there remains no federal agency responsible for ensuring the safety of firearms prior to firearms being sold to consumers. This legislative policy can be disasterous, as with the case of the SIG Sauer P320 pistol, a firearm which is prone to firing without the trigger having been pulled. The SIG Sauer P320 firearm is effectively always engaged within a cocked position, with the weapon ready to fire even when not intended by the end user (e.g. holstered and on the hip of the end user etc.). The SIG Sauer P320 is a striker fired firearm and does not have a manual safety by default. Early versions of the design had issues in which the internal components (e.g. trigger, sear, striker etc.) could inadvertently engage, causing an unintentional discharge. This has resulted in law enforcement and civilians accidentally harming themselves and others with accidental misfires. As of 2016, 80 people have been harmed by this particular firearm. In 2017, the manufacturer SIG Sauer Inc. offered a voluntary upgrade program, not a recall but rather an offer to modify the design of this firearm to improve safety features, including adjustments to the trigger, sear, and striker mechanisms

The Toxicity of Tanneries During the French Revolution

Leave a comment

One of the largest contributors to pollution during the French Revolution was the work of tanneries, which converted what is essentially animal skin, into leather goods. First the hide was immersed in an alkaline lime and water solution for up to 3 weeks, then it was brought out and shaved for both the hair on one side of the hide and the dissolved fat referred to as “sinew” on the other side. Once this process had been complete, dog and bird feces were mixed with hot water and human urine to create a bacterial cocktail which would work together to soften the hide and help it absorb dye. All of these components were dumped into local water sources once they had served their purpose which made living around them nearly impossible, with many people developing ulcerative lesions upon their throats when around these ingredients for extended periods of time

Inventions and Discoveries Developed Simultaneously Throughout History

Leave a comment

In 1922, a pair of Columbia University sociologists named William Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas published a paper entitled “Are Inventions Inevitable?” which stated that Ogburn and Thomas discovered 148 examples of documented simultaneous invention. This phenomena occurred in 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray filed for a patent for the telephone on the same day with Bell’s unit having a separated listening and talking piece whilst Gray’s unit having a single listening and talking unit built into a conical structure. Other notable examples include Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace who came up with the Theory of Evolution simultaneously, Carl Scheele and Joseph Priestly who discovered oxygen at the same time, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz who discovered and developed calculus at the same time, Dmitri Mendeleev and Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois who discovered and developed the periodic table at the same time, and Orville and Wilbur Wright and Samuel Langley who invented the airplane during the same period of time. Knowing this, it would seem that the phenomena of simultaneous invention and discovery seems to be exceedingly common for human beings throughout history

Bakers and Grocers Using Additives to Increase Profit Margins During the Victorian Period

Leave a comment

Profit margins were incredibly thin for Victorian bakers so to stretch flour as far as possible, they would add all sorts of additives to adulterate the end product (e.g. clay, plaster of Paris, sawdust, chalk, and alum, the same chemical used to clean swimming pools during the modern day etc.). Alum had both bulking qualities and acted as a bleach for the flour, so alum despite it being the most dangerous additive, was also the most popular supplement during this period. Victorian grocers would use tactics like watering down milk to stretch it as far as possible, going even further than bakers when it came to food tampering. Grocers would often add red lead to cheeses like Red Gloucester cheese, add iron sulfate to pickles to make them appear more green, spruce up old vinegar by adding sulphuric acid, add poisonous Prussian blue to tea leaves, and mixed mercury with children’s candy to enhance its color

The Original Version of the Statue of Liberty

Leave a comment

The Statue of Liberty was provided as a gift to the U.S. from the French public to celebrate the U.S. French alliance during the Revolutionary War. This gift however was not originally designed for the U.S., as its sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (pronounced “fred-reek ah-goost bar-told-ee”) had traveled to Egypt to pitch the idea of an enormous woman like the Statue of Liberty, standing at the entrance of the Suez Canal. This original design was to be veiled to comply with then Egyptian values, and holding a lantern representing Egypt carrying the light of progress into Asia. Initially the Egyptian government liked this idea but because the cost was exorbitantly high, plans were eventually scrapped. Bartholdi redesigned his concept to depict a Roman goddess which is more European and therefore palatable to the U.S. conscious. In addition to this, Bartholdi also wanted to ensure that this new design represented freedom, not progress, to reflect American sentiment during this period