If diamonds are just lumps of precisely - integrated C , why do n’t they burn off ? really , they do . And rise that they do is one of the things that be a famous scientist his life .
I wrote last hebdomad about Antoine Lavoisier , who died , in part , becausehe had mocked the scientific discoveriesof someone who became one of the leaders in the French rotation . One of the charges leveled against Lavoisier — just before he got his head and body forcibly separated — was his aristocratic extravagance . He had done the one affair more profligate than setting money on fire ; he ’d localize a diamond on fire . The fact that he had done it to prove that diamonds are carbon , and that subject is conserve in chemical reactions , carry no weight with the leaders of the rotation , but it does have some significance to us .
The scientific feud that ended in an carrying into action
Diamonds do n’t burst into flame under normal circumstances . Fire , also called oxidisation , involves pieces of a material combine with oxygen as they break off from the main body of the stuff . The operation call for heat energy , and getting the right amount of heat and oxygen is key . Although diamonds can glow at temperatures reach by a even welding torch , generally there is n’t enough of a ready provision of O in the air . Lavoisier stir up a ball field in a flask of pure O . It burn away to smoke . He then took another diamond , put it in a vacuity , and heat up it to the same temperature . Nothing happened . He had demonstrated that diamonds were inflammable atomic number 6 . He had also taken steps toward prove that mass did n’t go away when heated . It combined with oxygen and blow aside as sens .
multitude still do the burning diamond demonstration today . All it drive is a reservoir of vestal oxygen gas pedal and a torch . As the diamond heats up , it will glow . squirt little sip of atomic number 8 gas at it allows it to burn in small increments . Then again , if you want to go all out , you could always cut down the diamond in liquid oxygen . Suddenly , instead of one shine Lucy Stone , you have a fountain of burning ball field .
[ ViaLavoisier : Chemist , Biologist , Economist , Chem Team , Antoine Lavoisier : laminitis of Modern Chemistry , Pop Sci ]
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