Amber: (apropos of nothing) You're worth your weight in gold.
(She presses something into my palm. I look down.)
(Frowning, perplexed at how she could mistake a 1p coin for gold, I look up at her. She is already laughing).
Amber: It's actually copper!
Me: Actually it's probably something cheaper than copper. It's an alloy.
Amber: What's an alloy?
Me: It's when two metals are joined together via metallic bonding. The ions are squashed tightly together in a giant lattice so the electrons can't move about, that's what makes metals solid. It's also why metals conduct electricity, because they have a 'sea' of de- ... de- something electrons which move towards the positive terminal.
Amber: Wow! I wasn't expecting that!
On the way home I walked through the park and reflected on how science makes the world even more amazing. The fact that the path is firm enough to walk on, the trees are producing oxygen for me to breathe, the fibres in my clothes have been invented by humans, the number of hours that scientists have put into understanding how all these things work, the billion zillion trillion infinite number of atoms in everything, everywhere, coming together in such a way as to make life possible. It's mind-blowing.
No comments:
Post a Comment