Chapter 16

      Chapter 16 starts with Kean discussing the race to the south pole, which fits alongside the chapter's make:"Chemistry Way, Way Below Zero." Robert Falcon Scott and his team of Englishmen sought to be the first to reach the south pole. That year was among the coldest in Antartica, but they were determined to be the first to make it to the southernmost part of the planet. A caravan of support teams want ahead of them and dropped supplies for them to use on their return trip. Scott's team made it, but found that a Norwegian had already made it a month earlier. Defeated, they returned back, but found that many of their supplies had been rendered useless or depleted. The year before, Scott had found that leather seals leaked badly and decided to use tin this time around. However, when the team found their supplies, many of the canisters were empty and had leaked fuel onto the food.
      Kean explains this as tin's shape changing property and the effects of tin leprosy. Tin is capable of two solid forms, alpha and beta, a reaction that is catalyzed by extreme conditions. Scott's team did not make it back alive, dying about 11 miles away from the British base. Kean then goes on to talk about the various states of matter. Looking past the standard of solids, liquids, gases, and even plasma, Kean mentions superconductors, superfluid helium, quark-gluon plasma, and degenerate matter. He goes on to talk about the misuse of the uncertainty principle, mostly by pathological scientists. He ends the chapter on a hopeful more regarding the BEC, or Bose-Einstein Condensate. Laser is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," while maser is an acronym for "microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation."
      I liked the cold story in the beginning, it was closely tied to the title of the chapter and showed the bleak reality of science. Untested things tend to go awry, unless by some stroke of luck, and can cause disasters that cost people their lives. It was really interesting to learn of elements having more than one solid "form," that had never occurred to me. Seeing states of matter beyond the standard your was interesting, as I looked them up to learn a bit more on them. I never anticipated that laser was an acronym, much less did I anticipate how it worked. The section about lasers really makes sci-fi seem both less realistic, but also more within reach of humanity.
     I learned that it is always smart to test something before trying to use it to help you trek dangerous terrain. I also learned that elements behave erratically under extreme conditions and can have more than one form. On top of that, I learned that electron shells operate on a whole number system. It was also very interesting to learn about the more obscure states of matter. I would tell my bae that if they ever ask me what state of matter jello is, I will leave them and run away to Paris.