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Chemistry: 4.2 Subatomic Particles 209 Views
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Description:
Get ready, Shmoopers, today we're going to take things subatomic. But not in the dangerous way that Ant Man did. We're not as brave as he is.
Transcript
- 00:03
Isaac Isaacson is a fan of both [Scientist in a lab]
- 00:06
science and science fiction. His all-time
- 00:09
favorite book is Fantastic Voyage (he was
- 00:12
even named after the author, Isaac Asimov),
- 00:15
where a few people are shrunk down to a
Full Transcript
- 00:17
microscopic size and injected into a [People shrink, and an injection is given to a girl]
- 00:19
human body. Anyway, Dr. Isaacson has always
- 00:21
dreamed of taking a similar journey--not
- 00:24
into a human being, but into various
- 00:26
elements--and now thanks to his new
- 00:28
invention, the Shrinky-Dinker 2000, he [Strange looking gun appears]
- 00:31
can. With the help of his trusty lab
- 00:33
assistants, Larry and Curly (yeah, [Larry and Curly bump heads]
- 00:35
their names are totally just a
- 00:36
coincidence), the good doctor is about to
- 00:38
take the adventure of a lifetime. To get [Dr Isaacson rubbing his hands together]
- 00:41
things started, Dr. Isaacson is
- 00:42
miniaturized and his subatomic
- 00:45
submarine is sent sailing into a tank of
- 00:47
hydrogen. As the doctor navigates his [The little submarine is put into a tank]
- 00:50
ship about the tank, he observes the
- 00:51
hydrogen atoms in action and makes some
- 00:54
notes, although it would be tough for any [Making notes in the cockpit of the submarine]
- 00:56
normal-sized human being to read them...
- 00:57
Well, hope the re-enlargement phase goes [Person trying to read the notes through a microscope]
- 00:59
okay. Well, the first thing Dr. Isaacson
- 01:02
observes is the nucleus of a hydrogen
- 01:04
atom, which contains just a single proton, [The submarine going around the proton]
- 01:07
making hydrogen the lightest of all the
- 01:10
elements. If you're ever going to give an
- 01:11
element a piggyback ride, well you want [Girl with a hydrogen atom on her back]
- 01:13
to ride this one. The doctor then takes a
- 01:15
gander at the atom's neutron, the only
- 01:17
subatomic particle present with no [The submarine going around the neutron]
- 01:19
electrical charge. Yep, it's neutral, which
- 01:22
is where the word neutron comes from. Yeah,
- 01:25
it's the Switzerland of subatomic particles. [Switzerland with its hands up]
- 01:26
Well now, outside the nucleus, Dr.
- 01:28
Isaacson notices an electron go whizzing
- 01:31
by the outside of his submarine. He knows
- 01:33
that these are the negatively charged
- 01:35
pieces of an atom, and the reason they [The submarine next to an electron]
- 01:38
aren't flying off into other regions of
- 01:40
the tank is because the negative charge
- 01:41
keeps them attracted to the positive [The negative charge attracting the electron]
- 01:43
charge of the proton, so they stick
- 01:46
around. An electron is like a
- 01:48
star-crossed lover who can never be with
- 01:50
the object of his unrequited love but
- 01:52
hangs out so he can keep an eye on her
- 01:54
all the time. Okay, that's not a star- [Electron wearing love heart glasses following the proton]
- 01:56
crossed lover, that's a stalker, but still... [Police officer gets out a restraining order]
- 01:58
Once Dr. Isaacson has had his fill of
- 02:01
hydrogen, Larry and Curly remove him from
- 02:03
the tank and let him play with a few [The submarine is swapped tanks]
- 02:04
other elements. There's helium,
- 02:08
with an atomic number of two, meaning it
- 02:10
has two protons--twice as many as [The two protons are demonstrated]
- 02:12
hydrogen; copper, with 29 protons; and
- 02:16
uranium, with a whopping ninety-two
- 02:19
protons. Of course, no matter how many
- 02:21
protons an element has, Dr. Isaacson has [Drawing a love heart on the periodic table]
- 02:24
no favorites; they're all his babies. After
- 02:26
a long, exhausting day of voyaging
- 02:27
through the elements, the doctor is
- 02:29
finally ready to be retrieved and
- 02:30
returned to his normal incredible height
- 02:32
of 5 feet 2 inches. If only Larry and [The doctor asking to be taken out]
- 02:34
Curly hadn't bumped heads while rushing
- 02:36
about the lab in a frenzy... Well, they should
- 02:38
come to in an hour so. They can't see you,
- 02:41
doctor. Yeah, wave your arms all you want. [The doctor waving his arms in the submarine]
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