Nope, Rubric is not Max
Dec. 12th, 2003 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyPHOSPHORUS!
Phosphorus is great. Phosphorus is really cool. And you know why? Because it forms triangles and tetrahedra. Dr. Ostfeld says it's the only element that does. Last year in chemistry there were all these problems of the form "Here's the formula (but in such a form that it only tells you how many of each element are in it, now draw the structure", and I found often the simplest way was to use triangles, but Dr. Crane wouldn't accept that, because things don't form triangles. (And usually not squares, either. :( ) Except phosphorus. Phosphorus forms tetrahedra! In fact, that's what it normally is: P4, a tetrahedron. (I've suggested that we therefore call phosphorus "tetratomic", and also sulfur "octatomic", since it's normally S8, but I don't think I've heard anyone else use those terms.) And it's the only element that forms any Platonic solid. (Well, the military is trying to develop a cubic N8, because that would be really explosive, but they haven't done it yet, so there.) I mean, you know, you learn about shapes of molecules and this one is tetrahedral and this one is octahedral and in fact you can find ones in the shapes of all the Platonic solids (though you need to use boron to get an icosahedron), but only P4 (and the nonexistent N8) really count, because those are the only ones where every atom is a vertex and every bond is an edge, and vice versa. All those other ones have atoms in the center, or bonds to the center, or some such. They don't count. So phosphorus is cool because it forms triangles and tetrahedra, which no other element does. So HA!
-Sniffnoy
--
"He may look like an idiot, and he may sound like an idiot, but don't
let him fool you. He really is an idiot."
-Groucho Marx
Phosphorus is great. Phosphorus is really cool. And you know why? Because it forms triangles and tetrahedra. Dr. Ostfeld says it's the only element that does. Last year in chemistry there were all these problems of the form "Here's the formula (but in such a form that it only tells you how many of each element are in it, now draw the structure", and I found often the simplest way was to use triangles, but Dr. Crane wouldn't accept that, because things don't form triangles. (And usually not squares, either. :( ) Except phosphorus. Phosphorus forms tetrahedra! In fact, that's what it normally is: P4, a tetrahedron. (I've suggested that we therefore call phosphorus "tetratomic", and also sulfur "octatomic", since it's normally S8, but I don't think I've heard anyone else use those terms.) And it's the only element that forms any Platonic solid. (Well, the military is trying to develop a cubic N8, because that would be really explosive, but they haven't done it yet, so there.) I mean, you know, you learn about shapes of molecules and this one is tetrahedral and this one is octahedral and in fact you can find ones in the shapes of all the Platonic solids (though you need to use boron to get an icosahedron), but only P4 (and the nonexistent N8) really count, because those are the only ones where every atom is a vertex and every bond is an edge, and vice versa. All those other ones have atoms in the center, or bonds to the center, or some such. They don't count. So phosphorus is cool because it forms triangles and tetrahedra, which no other element does. So HA!
-Sniffnoy
--
"He may look like an idiot, and he may sound like an idiot, but don't
let him fool you. He really is an idiot."
-Groucho Marx
