Electric Vehicles' Battery Problem

"To replace the UK (not the UK) 31.5 million gasoline cars will require 236,000 tons of lithium carbonate." ~ quote from about 1:00 in the above video.

That would - again, according to the video - require all the world's output for 9 months.

And that metal comes from some countries with awful human rights records and workers' protections.

Then, if we mine the US's lithium, we have to use up water and leach arsenic into the water supply of Nevada...and dig into land holy to Native Americans...and destroy habitat for endangered animals.

It's the frickin' Kobayashi Maru, man.

Then we have to look at the cobalt mining.

To quote a magnet I got from the University of Utah, "what's your is mined," but clearly what's mined is bad for the planet and people.

Why SpaceX Cares About Concrete

Grady is back to school us about those tiny 'sparks' that flew away from the launch pad when SpaceX's rocket launched in November 2020.

Apparently the concrete that SpaceX uses for their launch pad isn't quite the same as the concrete that sits as the walkway outside my classroom window.

Grady explains what concrete is (hydrated crystals) and then tests two types of concrete exposed to three heat environments (room temp, home oven, and propane torch) under compression strength tests.

Not shockingly, the heated concretes broke at way less force.

He then goes on to explain how most of this weakness is caused by our old nemesis: thermal expansion.

Crystals: Building patterns with randomness

At this point, I'm fully in any time AlphaPhoenix releases a video. He explains material science beautifully.

In today's video he explains the differences between crystalline and amorphous (2:30), shows crystalline aluminum under an SEM (3:45), shows how 2-d magnetic discs when agitated spontaneously produce order (5:00-10:30 - the real money portion of the video), and uses a computer simulation to extend this into the third dimension (11:45).

This is a wonderful exploration of how crystals grow - whether they're our copper (II) sulfate crystals in class or cooling aluminum crystals or any other crystals.

Wonderful stuff, man.

Top 5 Materials Science Myths

I've heard these 'facts' before.

1. Glass is a super-cooled liquid. - amorphous vs crystalline vs liquids
2. Plastic water bottles release dioxins when frozen. - Ok, I hadn't heard this one. I'd heard about leeching at high temps.
3. Stainless steel is non-magnetic. - Some are, some aren't. Ferrite and martensite are magnetic...austenite are non-magnetic. Most (but not all) stainless steels are austenite.
4. Spider silk is stronger than steel. - interesting discussion of 'strength' and 'toughness' 
5. Radioactive metals glow green. - I knew this one...though some do glow blue

Melting pill bottles into robots. (The Plastic Recycling Episode)

I don't know, man. 

I assume the TheCrafsMan isn't really a felt puppet with a bad soul patch and an oddly affected, slow-paced, Cajun accent.

Then again, in my brief research of TheCrafsMan I can't find anything to say that he isn't that puppet somehow magically brought to life like a golem.

His projects a decently involved, however, so unless you've been doing some injection molding already, you - like me - might not be ready to step right up to this level of crafsing.

How Plates Made from Sugarcane Could Help India's Plastic Problem | World Wide Waste

On the last pre-exam school day of the 2021-22 school year, I allowed my students to ask me anything they wanted (as long as it was school appropriate). I got questions ranging from 'can I leave my exam early if I finish?' and 'how did you choose your college?' and 'what's your favorite color?

One student, however, asked me if I knew what perfluoroctanoic acid was. I asked if that was one of the PFAS's, and he said it was involved in making teflon.

I told them that I thought the two biggest challenges their generation - and their children's generations, too - would have to deal with were going to be global warming and polymers. I went on to explain some of the challenges we have with polymers: massive waste, non-biodegradability, absorption into our bodies, mimicking of hormones in our bodies, increased petroleum dependence, and on and on and on.

It wasn't the most chipper discussion I've had with my students.

Luckily, many folks are trying to do something about those problems.

2:37 / 4:58 FLAME COLORED COPPER…copper art time-lapse by Brent Artman

That's so pretty.

In summer camp and in our material science course at Princeton, we demonstrate this concept - that different portions of a flame produce different temperatures and different results - on a single copper sheet with one torch. We move the torch nearer to and further from the sheet and see reduction or oxidation.

But there's a lot more to using a flame to oxidize or reduce copper. In industry and - I think - in art, it's more common to adjust the mix of oxygen and fuel to change the flame between being oxidizing, neutral, and reducing (also known as carborizing). It's something that's done by plumbers when brazing together copper pipes.

Clearly, the video up top was made by someone who understands all this - maybe understands the science of it but certainly understands the practicality of it because Phoenix Flame Art (by Brent Artman - natch) uses the flame to produce some stunning artwork by preferentially oxidizing and reducing copper sheets.

@phoenix_flame_art Answer @liccalollipop Which group are you?? LINES OR NO LINES??? #PHOENIXFLAMEART #youchoose #contriversal #oneortheother #artinspo #poll #question #feedback #flameart #coldest @thecoldestwater ♬ FEEL THE GROOVE - Queens Road, Fabian Graetz