Random memory

[pne]

In chemistry class one day, we watched a video about the noble gasses.

There was a narrator sitting on a big stone or something; several balloons were taped to the edge of the stone. He'd take off one at a time, explain which noble gas was inside, then tell us something about the properties of that gas. At the end, he'd let go of that balloon.

The most memorably bit was the one he described as a "lead balloon"—the gas in question was heavier than air, so instead of floating up into the sky the way the first ones did, it fell fairly quickly to the ground.

Comments

[volantwish]

Was the narrator British? I think I saw that one, too! (Though my memory is coupled with the amusement of the class at the narrator's pronunciation of "aluminum.")

[pne.livejournal.com]

Was the narrator British?

Possibly.

I don't remember the narrator's accent, but I imagine we got educational materials from both the UK and the US, so it's possible that video was British.

the narrator's pronunciation of "aluminum."

And interestingly enough, that's a difference the Americans can't be made responsible for; they're being conservative, in this case, and it's the British who changed the word.

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

Although, to be fair, the British were trying to make the name conform to the general convention that metals' names end with "-ium". Apart from the metallic elements known in ancient times (e.g. lead, gold, copper) with equally ancient names, I think the only other metallic element with a name that ends only in "-um" (no "i") is platinum. (Although the Brits don't call that "platinium", IIRC....)

Metals in -um

[pne.livejournal.com]

The WP article that ubykhlives pointed to also mentions molybdenum and tantalum

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

And interestingly enough, that's a difference the Americans can't be made responsible for; they're being conservative, in this case, and it's the British who changed the word.

I just had a poke through the etymology discussion at Wikipedia (here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum#Spelling)), and they're not actually being conservative; having adopted "aluminium" for most of the 19th century, they actually changed it back to "aluminum" (thanks to what looks like a simple spelling mistake in an advertisement for an aluminium extraction process). To be fair, we should probably just use Davy's original name of alumium and be done with it. :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Interesting; thanks!

[tungol.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you remember what the heavy gas was?

[pne.livejournal.com]

No, I don't.

It was one of the ones further down, but whether it was krypton or xenon, I don't remember. (I don't think they showed us radon on that video, probably because it's radioactive.)