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Complex Numbers #1078516 added October 18, 2024 at 11:02am
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Lithium
It's science, not magic; and it's not secret anymore, thanks to Noemi. Fair warning, this is a long read:
The Secret, Magical Life Of Lithium 
One of the oldest, scarcest elements in the universe has given us treatments for mental illness, ovenproof casserole dishes and electric cars. But how much do we really know about lithium?
It may surprise some people to know that I don't have the Periodic Table memorized. I go, "Hydrogen, helium, lithium..." and then I have to look it up. Fortunately, I live in the 21st century, and it's easy to look things up rather than commit them to long-term memory.
(Beryllium's next, by the way, followed by boron and carbon.)
The universe was born small, unimaginably dense and furiously hot. At first, it was all energy contained in a volume of space that exploded in size by a factor of 100 septillion in a fraction of a second.
This view of universal origin may be in need of revision, thanks to JWST observations. It does not change the material (pun intended) facts of the piece.
Quarks and gluons had congealed to make the first protons and neutrons, which collided over the course of a few minutes and stuck in different configurations, forming the nuclei of the first three elements: two gases and one light metal.
Those would be the ones I mentioned above.
For the next 100 million years or so, these would be the only elements in the vast, unblemished fabric of space before the first stars ignited like furnaces in the dark to forge all other matter.
"Unblemished" is surely poetic license. Also, again, details subject to change pending study of recent observations.
Almost 14 billion years later, on the third rocky planet orbiting a young star in a distal arm of a spiral galaxy, intelligent lifeforms would give names to those first three elements.
"More than" 14 billion, and they need to be careful about calling us "intelligent," as doing so invites self-contradictory jokes about intelligence. (Self-contradictory, because one needs to be intelligent to make such a joke, but it's still stupid.)
“Lithium has one of the most complex stories,” Fields said. “The oxygen you’re breathing, the carbon in your DNA, the iron in your blood — that came later, out of stars. But lithium comes straight out of the Big Bang.”
This is misleading, as lithium can also be produced post-Bang, but the article does mention that later.
But the sources of lithium in the universe have, since the late 1980s, presented astronomers with an odd problem. As Fields told me, astronomers studying the abundance of elements after the Big Bang have created complex calculations that account for the expansion of the universe, nuclear reactions and the behavior of subatomic particles like photons and neutrinos. The math pencils out for hydrogen and helium — the measurements match the predictions. Not so with lithium — only a third or less of the expected amount of lithium is observable in the universe.
This sort of thing is exactly why we do science.
The story of how humans discovered lithium goes back to the late 18th century and a Brazilian scientist, statesman and poet named José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva who was hopscotching around Europe on a sort of early study abroad program.
I'm betting he studied more than "a" broad.
Because the element was discovered in a mineral, Arfwedson and Berzelius named it “lithia,” after the Greek word “lithos,” for stone.
It should surprise no one that I find the origins of element names fascinating. Apart from obvious ones like iron and gold, known from antiquity, their names tend to reflect how we discovered them. Hydrogen, made from water. Helium, first detected in the sun. Beryllium, found in the mineral beryl (emeralds, e.g.) That sort of thing.
Finally, in 1855, two chemists — Robert Bunsen and Augustus Matthiessen — were able to isolate lithium in a quantity large enough to study its properties.
Yes, that Bunsen, namesake of every chemistry student's favorite flame source.
The article goes on to describe the beginnings of what might be lithium's most famous application: treating mental disorders. Don't read it if you like guinea pigs.
Research in Texas, Greece, Lithuania and elsewhere has found that naturally occurring lithium in drinking water is associated with lower rates of suicide and violent crime, prompting some scientists to advocate adding it to municipal water supplies, much like fluoride is sometimes added to strengthen teeth.
1) I want to take this opportunity to point out that Lithuania and lithium are not etymologically related.
2) Oh, adding elements to drinking water is sure to be uncontroversial.
The article then turns to what's probably the second most famous application of lithium (and might have already claimed the #1 spot): batteries.
Thomas Edison died in 1931 with a tin of lithium on his desk. One of the final projects in the great inventor’s life was experimenting with new chemistries in what he called “storage batteries.”
Yeah, right. "Great inventor," my fat ass. Edison was a hack with a flair for marketing and melodrama, who coasted to most of his patents on the writhing backs of his underpaid servants. Could be he invented a thing or two by himself along the way, but he was a massive dick. Muskmelon reminds me of him.
Anyway, the article ends with a section highlighting lithium's ubiquitous role in today's technological life. As I expected, nothing magical about it, but it is interesting to read about. |
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