Bro, that glorious '80s PBS style Model of a Modern Major-General intro sold me. Just awesome. 😎

@ronhipschman

3 ай бұрын

Did you get the "joke in the jingle"? If not, I refer you to Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" song. kzread.info/dash/bejne/o62CzdSlp67ZZ8Y.html Ron

Thank you for this excellent video series about the lanthanides. I have learned so much from this series.

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

I learned a lot too!

these are really calming to watch

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

Thank you for that comment. Maybe I should do a series of elemental meditation videos! "Holmium" may be a nice mantra...🙏

I have very much enjoyed the voyage through the lanthanides, and am looking forward to the next leg of the elemental journey.

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

I've also enjoyed the lanthanides. It was much more interesting than I anticipated. I originally thought I'd end up grouping several (or all) into one video. Turned out, they're all interesting! But... I'll be glad to return to the transition metals where the applications are a bit richer.

Love these videos so much. You are molding minds and spreading knowledge. Thank you so much for all you do! Truly enjoyed the lanthanides, looking forward to platinum group metals, and especially rhenium. Thanks again Ron!

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

You are so welcome! And thanks for your kind words. Why are you looking forward to Rhenium?

@Mace2124

11 ай бұрын

@@ronhipschman I find Rhenium to be extremely fascinating, as it is pretty much confirmed it is the most rare elemental metal, has the highest boiling point, although some may argue tungsten. Very very dense, and resilient, with Rhenium Diboride being one of, if not the strongest materials in the world. I also find Iridium absolutely fascinating for the fact that so little of it exists on Earth, but such massive amounts of it are in meteors. Ruthenium and Osmium have very interesting properties as well. Thank you again for all you do Ron!

@sydhenderson6753

11 ай бұрын

@@Mace2124 Ruthenium's been done. There's a volcano in Kamchatka that emits rhenium sulfide, which still hasn't been explained.

@Mace2124

11 ай бұрын

@@sydhenderson6753 oops forgot about the ruthenium lol. And yes the volcano is amazing, there is an auction site where they discovered an elemental sample of rhenium like I've never seen before, I'll look for the link and see if I can post it here.

There was a bit of fuss a few weeks back when some scientists reported room-temperature superconductivity in a lutetium salt under extremely high pressures. So far there are mixed results trying to reproduce it, so it wouldn't have been a good idea to include it here. I'm very skeptical, but even if it's true it doesn't sound practical. By the way, you can date really old rocks using lutetium 176/hafnium 176 dating, but, given the rarity of lutetium and the small amount of hafnium produced, it required a brand new technology to detect them.

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

Syd, Thanks for this pointer. The best "human readable" paper I found on this is from Scientific American: www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-controversy-sink-this-superconductivity-breakthrough/ Ron

For those who didn't know: if you have a significant amount of lutetium, you can actually detect the radioactivity of 176Lu with a Geiger counter quite easily or even a spectrometer as 176Lu also emits several gamma rays of different energies in addition to beta particles. Thankfully the actinides are much more fascinating than their upper lanthanide neighbors (not counting those beyond fermium which can't be produced in macroscopic quantities) due to their nuclear related applications.

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

It'll be a while before we gat to the actinides. I suspect they'll be difficult even past Americium...

@sydhenderson6753

11 ай бұрын

@@ronhipschman As near as I can tell, protactinium and berkelium have no uses at all and neptunium is most useful for making plutonium 238. Curium's interesting, though.

@ronhipschman

11 ай бұрын

I believe that they use some of the heavier actinides (like Californium) to make the heaviest elements too! Does that count? Seems rather meta...

@brfisher1123

11 ай бұрын

@@ronhipschman True that but at least it's possible to make those up to fermium in significant amounts unlike the elements beyond fermium especially those with ridiculously short half-lives like livermorium and oganesson which renders them impossibly useless outside of scientific research.

@sydhenderson6753

11 ай бұрын

@@ronhipschman Californium is also used as a neutron source. Generally, all the even-numbered elements from 84 to 98 have some use, but the odd-numbered ones don't have much in the way of uses except for americium. Finding a use for Francium is a real challenge.