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Asante
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Which atom will define the 21th century?
#5612173 - 05/10/06 10:47 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Well ofcourse we need most atoms to get by, but which element (or even isotope) will really "define" the 21th century in your opinion?
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Asante
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5612186 - 05/10/06 10:53 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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In my view it would be Deuterium, or Hydrogen-2. In this century we will tame it to create the first practical fusion energy plants, which will give us an inexhaustible source of clean enviromentally friendly energy in any quantity we can muster.
The ITER Fusion Plant we're building now will fuse tritium (hydrogen-3) with deuterium, but I think that in the latter half of the century controlled D+D fusion might become viable, which will open up the universe for us.
So, in my view its the most fossile fuel imaginable, forged in the fires of the Big Bang, the omnipresent Deuterium!
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Seuss
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5612398 - 05/10/06 12:02 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I will have to stick with carbon, though hydrogen would be my second choice followed by silicon.
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Asante
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Seuss]
#5613865 - 05/10/06 05:38 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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But why carbon?
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Shdwstr
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Seuss]
#5613875 - 05/10/06 05:40 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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It's not on your chart.... Yet! And I'm keeping the one I have
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trendal
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Seuss]
#5613897 - 05/10/06 05:48 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: I will have to stick with carbon, though hydrogen would be my second choice followed by silicon.
I'll second that - carbon, I think, will define this next century.
The lack of available hydrocarbons will be the reason, along with increasingly hard-to-ignore environmental effects due to the release of carbon from said hydrocarbons.
I have some serious doubts as to whether fusion will become a viable energy source at any time - mostly for technical feasibility reasons, but also because I just don't think the energy equation is balanced in our favor. The only place we know fusion to occur naturally is under extreme gravitational pressure - something we just don't have here on Earth - and I think the energy requirements to simulate this pressure are prohibitive for energy-production uses.
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Diploid
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5613900 - 05/10/06 05:48 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Rhodium, atomic number 45, just because I like the name (and miss the old web site).
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Catalysis
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5614160 - 05/10/06 06:41 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Well if the power of fusion is harnessed, I suppose it would be deuterium or tritium but I think carbon is most likely.
Pretty soon we will see ultra-strong materials doped with carbon nanostructures, new organic polymers, organic displays, solar cells, new drugs- both medical and psychedelic, etc.
After carbon, I think the most important atom will be somewhere in group 3A to 6A but I am not sure which.
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Scott Bennett
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? *DELETED* [Re: Asante]
#5614626 - 05/10/06 08:15 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Post deleted by ThaiLipaYaiReason for deletion: .
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ChuangTzu
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Seuss]
#5616531 - 05/11/06 09:28 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
I will have to stick with carbon
Me too.
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monamine
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5619094 - 05/11/06 09:21 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I've always been a HUGE fan of Einstienium. I have some in my particle accelerator as we speak.
In all seriousness, hydrogen because most of the matter in the universe is composed of it?
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DadeMurphy
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Scott Bennett]
#5619167 - 05/11/06 09:44 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Word, those empty p-orbitals are mighty fine.
What about silicon though?
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blink
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: ChuangTzu]
#5620254 - 05/12/06 06:30 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
ChuangTzu said:
Quote:
I will have to stick with carbon
Me too.
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Asante
Mage


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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: blink]
#5620714 - 05/12/06 10:45 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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So far nobody chose Osmium the element with the most compact nucleus.
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Seuss
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5620730 - 05/12/06 10:51 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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What is the magical alien anti-gravity element that hasn't been discovered yet that the pseudo-science crowd loves to discuss? I was waiting for somebody to jump on that one, but none did...
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goobler
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5620781 - 05/12/06 11:10 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I'm going to say gold
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Colonel Kurtz Ph.D
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: Asante]
#5621473 - 05/12/06 02:21 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I sure hope it's not uranium! Um, I've always loved F, but this time I'm going with Unn, just because it's my laptop's name in my home network
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inoculatedGreif
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it will be a mixture, or not at all one. With better technology, and methods man will either discover a new element. or they will mix elements/matter to create a new element.
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trendal
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: inoculatedGreif]
#5622011 - 05/12/06 05:47 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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New elements have been created by humans before - the last 10 or so elements in the table are all man-made elements that never existed before in nature.
They can't be used for anything, though, because they are all incredibly unstable. Many of them have never even been photographed because no one has been able to make enough and manage to keep it around for long enough to take a pic. These elements generally break down into lighter elements (by nuclear fission) within seconds at most.
or they will mix elements/matter to create a new element
Mixing elements together creates compounds, not new elements. Mixing two hydrogens and an oxygen creates the compound of water, for example.
Fusing elements together can create a new element, but fusing much of anything beyond the first few elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium) is so far beyond our technology that I doubt it will become common place any time in the next century.
All the "man-made" elements at the end of the periodic table are created by shooting neutrons at other naturally-occurring heavy elements. If done just right, the element you start with will absorb a few neutrons and be converted into a new even heavier element.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Catalysis
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Re: Which atom will define the 21th century? [Re: DadeMurphy]
#5622238 - 05/12/06 06:48 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
What about silicon though?
The question is, what is going to replace silicon?
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