Circuitry, Electrons, Atoms, and Catfish

A post under development – as we work through her Tinkercrate (Circuits) this week:
Today we read through the Tinkerzine, learning about the basics of electrons, the concepts of particles within an atom, the structure and concept of an atom, how electrons behave, the difference between a particle, an atom, and a molecule, and discovered the ENIAC.

ENIAC (/ˈini.æk/ or /ˈɛni.æk/; Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was Turing-complete, digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve “a large class of numerical problems”.

Our initial discussion focused on the concepts of a circuit.  We talked about how circuits are created, completed, broken, and their varying forms. We looked at a variety of batteries, the power grid, and finally, microchips.

An integrated circuit (IC), sometimes called a chip or microchip, is a semiconductor wafer on which thousands or millions of tiny resistors, capacitors, and transistors are fabricated. Modern electronic circuits are not made up of individual, separated components as was once the case. Instead, millions of tiny circuits are embedded in a single complex piece of silicon and other materials called an integrated circuit(IC), or microchip.

https://youtu.be/vrcV1kHe6Vg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3dp7DaehjbflQP7GAw29w

This Tinkercrate will enable her to build what amounts to an integrated circuit, which we may, eh, integrate into one of her Arduino builds.  It also offers materials and instructions on building an LED bulb, a card that will light on a path, and provides details and explanations on creating, capturing, and utilizing electrical current. She is expanding her understanding of states of electromagnetism, static charge, kinetic and potential energy, and the various chemical reactions that can cause

We have talked about molecules, particles, and elements.

Her Tinkerzine discusses atoms being the smallest objects found within materials, but then we talked about what makes up atoms, and she concluded that if electrons, protons, and neutrons are what have to be combined together to make an atom, they are smaller than the sum of them – the atom. So, we started talking about particles.

A few days ago, we watched the following videos

https://youtu.be/LGYsOAy1Uw8
Which led to a discussion on carbon dating (see below)
And we watched this:

She fully understands the concept of electrons in a row, moving in a direction as a result of a trigger. She conducted her own representation of what is shown in this video, with markers (connected) and then Legos.

Lily looked up the following, as we talked about the various concepts we’d encountered at that point:

1. A molecule is the smallest particle in a chemical element or compound that has the chemical properties of that element or compound. Molecules are made up of atoms that are held together by chemical bonds. These bonds form as a result of the sharing or exchange of electron s among atoms.

• How are atoms held together? Her hypothesis/response included the mention of electromagnetic force.  We had talked earlier today about electromagnetic force, electromagnetism (for which, she referenced her plasma ball and we talked about the crazy strong magnets we have been playing with lately – which was again discussed when we talked about –
  1. Large molecules consisting only of carbon, known as buckminsterfullerenes, or buckyballs, have recently been discovered and are currently the subject of much scientific interest. A single buckyball consists of 60 or 70 carbon atoms (C₆₀ or C₇₀) linked together in a structure that looks like a soccer ball. They can trap other atoms within their framework, appear to be capable of withstanding great pressures and have magnetic and superconductive properties. 
• We looked up images for the particles within an atom:
  
  

 
Which led us to this page –

 

1. We looked up graphite, which led us to diamonds (see #2 below):
   1. a gray, crystalline, allotropic form of carbon that occurs as a mineral in some rocks and can be made from coke. It is used as a solid lubricant, in pencils, and as a moderator in nuclear reactors.

Allotrope: Allotropy or allotropism (from Greek ἄλλος (allos), meaning “other”, and τρόπος (tropos), meaning “manner, form”) is the property of some chemical elements to exist in two or more different forms, in the same physical state, known as allotropes of these elements. Allotropes are different structural modifications of an element;

Large molecules consisting only of carbon, known as buckminsterfullerenes, or buckyballs, have recently been discovered and are currently the subject of much scientific interest. A single buckyball consists of 60 or 70 carbon atoms (C₆₀ or C₇₀) linked together in a structure that looks like a soccer ball. They can trap other atoms within their framework, appear to be capable of withstanding great pressures and have magnetic and superconductive properties.

When asked for what other examples she might be able to think of that represent an element or object, which is the same but can be experienced in two different forms, she came up with water/ice/packed ice (think Minecraft), and dirt/mud.

1. Carbon is the fourth most abundant chemical element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon is abundant in the Sun, stars, comets, and in the atmospheres of most planets. Some meteorites contain microscopic diamonds that were formed when the solar system was still a protoplanetary disk.

• Carbon is most commonly obtained from coal deposits, although it usually must be processed into a form suitable for commercial use. Three naturally occurring allotropes of carbon are known to exist: amorphous, graphite and diamond.
  http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele006.html

 
There are nearly ten million known carbon compounds and an entire branch of chemistry, known as organic chemistry, is devoted to their study. Many carbon compounds are essential for life as we know it. Some of the most common carbon compounds are: carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon disulfide (CS₂), chloroform (CHCl₃), carbon tetrachloride (CCl₄), methane (CH₄), ethylene (C₂H₄), acetylene (C₂H₂), benzene (C₆H₆), ethyl alcohol (C₂H₅OH) and acetic acid (CH₃COOH).
And so, the conversation turned to diamon ore (Minecraft), carbon, and graphite.
Carbon, the sixth most abundant element in the universe, has been known since ancient times.

 
Thomas Edison slipped in at this point

Amorphous carbon is formed when a material containing carbon is burned without enough oxygen for it to burn completely. This black soot, also known as lampblack, gas black, channel black or carbon black, is used to make inks, paints and rubber products. It can also be pressed into shapes and is used to form the cores of most dry cell batteries, among other things.

HISTORY OF THE BATTERY

Did you know that the term “battery” was first coined by Benjamin Franklin (a polymath – which means someone with a wide range of knowledge and learning) in 1749? It was used to describe a set of linked capacitors that he used in electrical experiments. The capacitors consisted of glass coated by metal and charged with a static generator.

Today, May 4, we read, “What’s the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?“, a book I’ve had since the mid 80’s.  Lily chose to remain present for the entire book, and we talked about the various stuff Ben came up with, was known for, and accomplished within his lifetime. We’ll watch a quick program next about his life, that will hopefully help bring this aspect of history into the realm of relevant for Lils.

First, there’s the autobiography of BF – https://youtu.be/6eZlBRBFrhI

Then –

https://youtu.be/fmJegIpEGQg

 
This led to a discussion of the original batteries, or so we think: the Baghdad Batteries
The “Baghdad battery” consists of three artifacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of one metal, and a rod of another. The current interpretation of their purpose is as a storage vessel for sacred scrolls from nearby Seleucia on the Tigris. Those vessels do not have the outermost clay jar, but are otherwise almost identical.
 


 
So, now we are in search of the Mythbusters’ episode on this ancient battery – or was it…  Episode 29, here we come.
This aspect of the history of the battery led to a discussion of how we date artifacts.
We talked about how we try to determine how old stuff is… she shared a few ideas she had on how stuff could be dated.  I’ll upload the video.

1. Carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon with a half-life of 5,730 years, is used to find the age of formerly living things through a process known as radiocarbon dating. The theory behind carbon dating is fairly simple. Scientists know that a small amount of naturally occurring carbon is carbon-14. Although carbon-14 decays into nitrogen-14 throughbeta decay, the amount of carbon-14 in the environment remains constant because new carbon-14 is always being created in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. Living things tend to ingest materials that contain carbon, so the percentage of carbon-14 within living things is the same as the percentage of carbon-14 in the environment. Once an organism dies, it no longer ingests much of anything. The carbon-14 within that organism is no longer replaced and the percentage of carbon-14 begins to decrease as it decays. By measuring the percentage of carbon-14 in the remains of an organism, and by assuming that the natural abundance of carbon-14 has remained constant over time, scientists can estimate when that organism died. For example, if the concentration of carbon-14 in the remains of an organism is half of the natural concentration of carbon-14, a scientist would estimate that the organism died about 5,730 years ago, the half-life of carbon-14.

 
Tomorrow we might focus on the main Tinkercrate project…  and in the mean time, the following is what I’m tracking down, and will be discussing with her (at a level she can make sense out of and utilize) over the coming week:

1. Isotope vs Allotope

2. Why do Li-ion Batteries die ? and how to improve the situation? https://youtu.be/pxP0Cu00sZs

3. Circuits to IC’s, semiconductors, etc..  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_packaging
   1. Semiconductor: a solid substance that has a conductivity between that of an insulator and that of most metals, either due to the addition of an impurity or because of temperature effects. Devices made of semiconductors, notably silicon, are essential components of most electronic circuits.
   2. IC: Another name for a chip, an integrated circuit (IC) is a small electronic device made out of a semiconductor material. The first integrated circuit was developed in the 1950s by Jack Kilby of Texas Instrumentsand Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor.
4. What is the quantum state of a static electric field?
   
   1. In physics, specifically in quantum mechanics, a coherent state is the specific quantum state of the quantum harmonic oscillator whose dynamics most closely resembles the oscillating behaviour of a classical harmonic oscillator. It was the first example of quantum dynamics when Erwin Schrödinger derived it in 1926, while searching for solutions of theSchrödinger equation that satisfy the correspondence principle.
   2. COHERENT STATES:
      1. Nye discusses light coherence (laser) in a short on holograms

1. Faraday’s law of induction is a basic law of electromagnetism predicting how amagnetic field will interact with an electric circuit to produce an electromotive force (EMF)—a phenomenon called electromagnetic induction. It is the fundamental operating principle of transformers, inductors, and many types of electrical motors,generators and solenoids. 
   1. Refer to COSMOS – Season 1, Epi 10 (The Electric Boy)

https://youtu.be/EPTrYsuE9sA
LOVING THIS – http://emojiscience.com