I went online and found an interesting article about why the red paint in Van Gogh's art started turning white. A team from Belgium used X-ray powder diffraction tomography in order to identify the cause. They examined Van Gogh's "Wheat Stack Under a Cloudy Sky". The team identified that the red paint Van Gogh used contained a rare mineral lead called plumbonacrite. Through light exposure, the plumbonacrite was coated in carbonates which caused the red to turn white.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/nasa-discovers-mars-had-more-water-than-the-earths-arctic-ocean/
I found an article online which I found really interesting. Scientists from NASA discovered that Mars use to have an ocean larger than the Arctic Ocean on Earth. It spread over a fifth over the surface and held 20 million cubic kilometers of water. The water on Mars was like the water on Earth where it contained 2 hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atoms. However, there was another form of water which contained an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium. Eventually, the Martian atmosphere thinned and caused the normal water to go into space. Mars was also not warm enough to keep the water in its liquid form and it froze. According to the scientists, this is evidence that Mars might have held life. For the Measurement Lab, I am experimenting with different measuring equipment. The purpose of this lab is to determine which piece of equipment has the most accuracy and precision. By doing so, I am also determining what purposes each equipment has for different measurements. I chose this lab mostly because I wanted to get my hands on the equipment that I saw lying on the shelves. I wanted to finally see how they are used. I was also hoping to gain valuable experience and knowledge of the equipment for future labs that I might do. The two most important terms, to understand for this lab, is Accuracy and Precision. Accuracy shows correctness or how close a measurement is to the true value. Precision shows if measurements can be reproduced or how close they are to one another.
After calculating the R-Squared values, I can determine that the Volumetric Flask had the highest R-Squared value. It had an R-Squared value of 1, which was the highest of the equipments that I used. Since it had the highest R-Squared value, it is the most precise equipment for measurement. I believe that based on my measurements, the Volumetric Flask would provide the best overall measurements. It was the most precise equipment because it had the highest R-Squared value of 1. It was also the second most accurate equipment after the Pipette. This was because it had the second lowest percent error of 0.66%. I thought that I preformed decently on this lab. However I thought that when I filled the equipment up with water, the water could have been closer to the scale marks. The sink I used did not produce a good stream of water, so it gave me trouble putting the water at the intended marks. I believe that this contributed to most of the errors and inconsistencies in my measurements. Here is a download for the Excel file I used to record all of my measurements and calculations.
____ In class, we started learning about atoms and the periodic table. We learned that an atom is the smallest unit of an element. An atom is made out of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Every element has different amounts of each. We were then taught about what the periodic table is, and how to read it. We were taught what the atomic number and mass means for each of the elements. After that, we began the actual experiment. Each group was given a volumetric flask, a balloon, magnesium, water, and citric acid. We mixed it all together inside the flask to cause a reaction. We put the balloon at the top to capture everything that was coming out of the flask. We learned that the reaction between the magnesium and the citric acid was creating hydrogen. All the hydrogen was being captured by the balloon. When there was no more magnesium left in the flask, we tied the balloon together. We noticed that the other group's balloon were floating. Andrew lit a candle and popped all of our balloons. The popping with the candle caused small explosions. Apparently, the explosions created water. This is because the hydrogen in the balloon combines with the oxygen in the air to create H2O or water.
Overall, I thought this was a very interesting experiment. I never knew that the materials caused this reaction when mixed together. I also thought that the explosions were exciting too. For this independent experiment, my group and I created a cologne. The questions we based our experiment on was: How is cologne created? To create our cologne, we needed our main ingredients. These were lemon peels, lavender, and rosemary. We got these by buying them, or by using any that were lying around. We first had to extract the essential oils by putting the ingredients in a distillation apparatus. The essential oils were very important to the lab because they held all the fragrances of the ingredients we were using. In the distillation apparatus, the ingredients were separately put into a large flask. The large flask was put on top of a heater and was connected to a tube which was connected to smaller flask. The ingredients were heated up and vaporized. The vapor went through a tube where it condensed into a liquid. The liquid was collected inside the smaller flask. Eventually there would be enough essential oil inside the liquid. We did this process for lemon peels and lavender, but we felt it was not efficient enough. We changed the process into using a CO2 chamber for the rosemary. The rosemary would be dissolved by using dry ice. After we had extracted all of our essential oils, we began actually making cologne by mixing the oils together with ethanol. We would do different combinations of the oils to make different smells. We then finally determined which combination smelled the best and we made that our final cologne. We named that one cologne "Fucci". I feel that since we were able to create a cologne that had a very pleasant scent, we were successful. Some people said that they would wear our cologne. The only way we could have failed this lab was if we had not made anything whats so ever. I am not exactly sure what exactly happens in a molecular level to make something smell good. I am guessing that there are certain combinations of molecules that produces a scent that the human nose finds pleasing. I felt that we got desirable results for two reasons: Our entire group worked efficiently on the lab. We made sure to do something productive everyday we worked on the lab. We also followed our teacher's instructions. We did everything he told us to do to create the cologne. I thought that I performed this activity well. I made sure to always be productive everyday. I also thought that I worked very efficiently in completing the lab. In my group, I worked with Angel Muneton and Francisco Diaz. I thought we worked really well together since we did not argue. We seemed to be very efficient in creating the experiment. If I were to do this experiment again, I would have used the CO2 chamber for all the ingredient. It seemed to make a lot more oil than the original distillation apparatus. I would be okay with working with this group again on other experiments. I do not think there is anyway whats so ever that we could continue this lab besides using other ingredients to make other colognes. I would not want to continue working on this lab either. In this experiment, I thought it was important that I learned a way to mix ingredients. This also gave me my first experience in using apparatuses to complete labs. I also learned something about the topic of scents because of this lab. I knew nothing about the topic scents before I began this lab. |
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May 2015
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