Atomic structure

Homeschooler Susan Evans came up with LEGO atomic structure to teach chemistry to kids. The red bricks are protons, the black ones are neutrons, and the blue bricks are electrons (note how they are divided up into energy levels). These represent, respectively, neutral oxygen and neon atoms.

LEGO Elements

Students and faculty at Spring Arbor University built this LEGO periodic table. The fun thing is that they then illustrated each of the elements. If you click on the periodic table on the site, you'll learn little facts about each one.

Chemistry lab

Billyburg built this great chemistry lab as a gift. Some of the details include a fume hood, safety shower, and a rotary evaporator (rotovap).

Research Institute!

The result are in for the next LEGO Ideas set. LEGO Ideas is the successor to LEGO Cuusoo, a website where fan builders can submit their ideas, and if they get enough votes, LEGO will consider making an official set. This has been good for LEGO science fans, with three of the six sets released so far being science themed: the Shinkai research submarine, the Hayabusa probe, and the Mars rover. The recent round of review brought still another science set - the Female Minifigure Set. The original idea was to create a series of vignettes showing women in different occupations (I previously blogged about this). The idea was narrowed down to the chemist, the astronomer, and the paleontologist. This got a huge push because of the gender politics of the issue; as I've previously ranted, that's not the cool thing about this set, though that is surely what will make the headlines. What is cool about this set is that it shows scientists at work. The ultimate set, which will be a variation of the original idea shown below, will be called Research Institute and will come out this fall.

Periodic table

The periodic table, here by Richard Harrison, lays out all of the different elements, the different types of atoms that make up the world around us. There are a little over a hundred different types known, and some scientists are continuing to work on finding bigger and bigger elements. The elements get bigger and bigger as you read left to right and down the table (technically this is increasing atomic number). The key insight that helped Mendeleev categorize the elements was that when you list them in order there are repeating, or periodic properties. The lines are broken up so that everything within a column has these periodic properties. Chemists can look at where an element is on the table, and what other elements are nearby, and make conclusions about the properties of that element.

Periodic table of the elements

The periodic table (here by Pedro Nogueira Photography) is one of the most enduring images of chemistry, adorning textbooks, classroom walls, and laboratories alike. Mendeleev first noticed that if you wrote a list of the elements in increasing size (he used mass, today we use atomic number), there is a repetition of properties. So based on this he wrote these into a two dimensional chart, where reading left to right you get increasingly large elements, and elements in a column has the same properties. It turns out this repetition in properties is based on a repeating pattern of how electrons are arranged in subsequent energy levels. Here different regions of the chart are color coded, with, for instance, the noble gases in orange and the transition metals in blue.

Chemistry prize!

Congratulations to Karplus, Levitt and Warshel on the 2013 Chemistry Nobel. These three made important strides in integrating the two sides of computational modeling. Computational chemists use two different methods to simulate molecules and make predictions about their structures and properties. Molecular mechanics, MM, uses classical physics and treats atoms as balls and springs. This does not give very exact answers, but these calculations are very fast and can be used for large systems (e.g. proteins). Quantum mechanics, QM, treats electrons individually. This gives very exact answers, but molecules that have only ten or twenty atoms can sometimes take many hours to complete, so things like proteins would take lifetimes to calculate. QM/MM is the solution. Karplus, Levitt and Warshel worked out ways to integrate the two methods so that large systems could be broken into parts, with part treated with MM and the other part treated with QM. This allows you to take some big system, like an enzyme, and very quickly solve the structure of the larger part with MM, but closely model reactions in the active site using QM.

To make an analogy, let's look at DUPLO and System LEGO. DUPLO are the larger blocks built for young children (my almost-2-year-old loves to chew on these). System bricks are what you probably think of as LEGO. You may not have realized it, but these two types of pieces can be combined:



Some LEGO builders use this trick when making large creations. DUPLO bricks are larger, and can quickly build up big mountains or whatever, but System bricks can be used to make the final result much more detailed. Here we see this principle in a WIP of a train display.


Now, this isn't so hard, since DUPLO and System bricks are both by LEGO, and they designed these to integrate. But QM/MM is a different matter. The theories underlying them are completely unrelated, and the real difficulty that faced Karplus, Levitt and Warshel (and others) and the reason they were recognized by the Nobel committee, was how to develop tools that connected them together in a meaningful way. A couple of years ago, Golan Levin and Shawn Sims came up with a series of connection pieces that can link LEGO, Lincoln Logs, TinkerToys, and other building toys. They don't sell them, but they made the designs available so you can make your own with a 3D printer.



With these you can link up previously-unconnected constructions. It's QM/MM for the building toy world! Hmm, is their a Nobel for toys?

Female figs Cuusoo project

Cuusoo is a LEGO website for crowdsourcing set ideas. You propose a set, and if it gets 10,000 votes, LEGO promises to take a serious look at producing the set. Most of the sets that have made it to 10,000 have been attached to some movie/TV show/video game, and fans of that movie/show/game help push it over the top. That said, there have been two science driven sets already produced, the Shinkai submarine and the Hayabusa space probe, in the original Japan-only version of Cuusoo, and the Mars Curiosity Rover is being considered in the most recent round of creations that have reached 10,000. Now it seems that socio-political forces are pushing another to the top. Alatarial designed Female Minifigs to help correct the gender imbalance in Legoland, putting women in small scenes depicting different occupations. The cool thing, and the reason why I'm posting this here on SciBricks, is that many of those occupations are as scientists, probably because Alatarial is herself a geochemist: paleontologist, astronaut, astronomer, chemist, (falconer), geologist, and engineer (plus six others in non-science roles not shown here). I assume that this was recently posted on some social media site, or featured in some news source, because the project jumped from 2500 votes to 7500 in just three days.

Formaldehyde

You might have noticed that I'm making some slight changes to the look of this blog, including the graphics added to the banner at the top of this page. I tried to choose some models from a few (but by no means all) of the major disciplines covered on this blog - chemistry, math, biology and astronomy. Let's take a few blog posts to look at the models I used. Starting at the left end with one of my own, here is my model of formaldehyde (shown next to a standard organic chemistry model kit version). Formaldehyde is made up of one atom of carbon (shown in black), with a double bond to an atom of oxygen (red) and two bonds to hydrogen atoms (white). One thing that is demonstrated by this model is the shape of formaldehyde. Molecular shape is driven by VSEPR - Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion theory. The bonds (gray lines) are made up of negatively chaged electrons, and, since like charges repel, those bonds push each other away. VSEPR says that the best (lowest energy) arrangement of bonds will maximize the distance between the bonds. Here we have three sets of bonds around carbon, and the furthest they can get from each other is 120 degree angles (360 / 3).

Breaking Bad, the video game

As a chemist, Breaking Bad is a pretty fun show to watch. Not only is the protagonist a chem teacher, but they sneak in little nuggets of real science here and there. Brian Anderson made this parody of a Breaking Bad video game based on the style seen in the various LEGO games.

Argon

Argon (here by the One and Only Mr R) is an element with the atomic number 18. It is a noble gas, which means it does not enter into reactions to form compounds with other elements (hence the name, derived from the Greek word for lazy). Argon is the third most abundant gas in the earth's atmosphere, after nitrogen and oxygen.

Breaking Barium

As a chemist I really like the show Breaking Bad, whose logo (here by Lego Junkie) involves the atomic symbols for Bromine and Barium. There are a little over a hundred different types of atoms, known as elements. What differentiates one element from another is the number of protons in the nucleus, and the arrangement of electrons and bonding properties are related to this. Bromine is an element with 35 protons in the nucleus. In the elemental form (that is, when it's just by itself and not combined with other elements to make compounds) it forms diatomic molecules - two bromines connected to each other. Br₂ is largely a liquid at room temperature. It reacts readily with other compounds in a number of ways, including both radical and ionic reactions. Barium has 56 protons in the nucleus and is a metal. It easily loses two electrons to become a positively charged species in various ionic compounds.

Hydrogen

MOCathalon is an annual LEGO building contest with a series of categories. One of this year's categories is 'Just teach it!', and Finn Tegotash built a chemistry class.

Okay, class, we're going to continue with our examination of the periodic table.


Hydrogen is the simplest element, with only one proton and one electron. In molecular form it exists as H2.


Since it is the lightest element, and since gases take up the same volume of space regardless of their mass, the same volume of hydrogen is much lighter than the same volume of air (a mix of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and some other things). Therefore, a balloon filled with hydrogen floats.


Hydrogen reacts with oxygen to make water. This reaction gives off a lot of energy. It is an exothermic process. Boom!

Happy Halloween

For Halloween, here's Thoy Bradley's great Ghost Hunters scene. Why post this on SciBricks, you ask? Because it gives me a chance to discuss that great mist effect. First let's enjoy the MOC:



He achieves the effect by putting dry ice in a container of water in a chamber below the scene. You've probably all seen this trick used to make a mist that bubbles out and runs along the ground. Dry ice is actually solid carbon dioxide. Matter generally exists in three phases - solid, liquid and gas. You are certainly used to seeing a simple ice cube melt to form liquid water as it is warmed, and then boil to make steam if it is heated still more. Carbon dioxide actually goes directly from solid to gas phase at one atmosphere of pressure (the air pressure at sea level). Here's the phase diagram:

As you can see on that diagram, to make liquid carbon dioxde you have to be at a fairly high pressure. (As an aside, we used to make dry ice bombs in lab - pack some dry ice into a plastic vial, when it warms up and changes to gas the pressure makes it blow up. If you ever see the liquid inside, you'd better throw that thing darn quick. BTW, always wear safety goggles in lab! ;) ) (And yes, now that I'm old and stodgy, if any of my student were building dry ice bombs in lab they'd get in a lot of trouble.) Okay, back to the smoke technique. Carbon dioxide is a gas at room temperature, but a solid below -78 degrees Celsius. When you throw a chunk in water, it starts bubbling. That's not the water boiling, that's the dry ice rapidly subliming (going directly from solid to gas phase). Since the gaseous carbon dioxide is so cold (starting out at -78 C until it slowly warms to room temp), it is also very dense, so it bubbles out and runs along the ground. But the spooky smoke you see isn't the gaseous carbon dioxide - that would be completely invisible (breathe out and you'll see, or not see to be more precise). Instead as it comes into contact with water vapor in the air, it cools it down enough to condense it to small droplets, an extremely fine mist. And so that's the effect you see in this LEGO creation, or any time dry ice in water is used to create a smoke effect. I've got some dry ice here in a cooler (I actually bought a huge chunk in preparation for potentially losing power in Hurricane Sandy), so I think I'm going to put it in water in a plastic pumpkin on my porch for trick or treaters. Happy Halloween!

Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel (here in LEGO form by Michael Jasper) was a chemist who lived from 1833-1896. He invented dynamite, along with other explosives, and this allowed him to amass a great personal fortune. When his brother died, a newspaper erroneously reported it as his death, and they editorialized about how his legacy was this explosive that would kill untold numbers of victims in warfare. He was distressed that he might be remembered as a killer, so he wrote his will to set up a series of annual prizes, now known as the Nobel Prizes, to promote the sciences and the welfare of mankind. It's Nobel week, and I'm a bit behind, but let's take a look at the new Nobel laureates through the lens of LEGO.

Bohr atom

Yesterday's Google doodle celebrated that 127 anniversary of Niels Bohr's birth. Bohr developed the planetary model of the atom, with the nucleus in the center and electrons following circular orbits, similar to planets circling the sun. KillerMoth26 designed this LEGO atom.

Hydrogen

LK, the Scientist built a Hydrogen atom.

Chemistry lab

Manplus2 built this university chemistry lab. I really like how he captured a lot of the details found in all of the various labs I've ever taught in.


Details include the periodic table, and a waste container for disposing broken glass, needles, and other sharps.

Here's an eye wash and safety shower.

Here our student is working in the hood. Hey, shouldn't he be wearing goggles?

Ethanol

Bunnyman came up with this LEGO depiction of ethanol.

How Woody Guthrie won the war

I teach at a liberal arts college, and I really do believe in the liberal arts ideal. That is, a well rounded education includes an understanding of all different areas of scholarship. No subject can be treated in isolation. For instance, take something as simple as stopping at a McDonalds to buy a burger. This touches on health, which includes biology and biochemistry, to really understand what that burger is doing in your body. It also relates to economics, how large franchises such as this affect our economy. Environmental and ethical concerns can be addressed in how the food was raised to make that burger. History and sociology come in when you look at how the fast food industry helped drive (pun intended) the car culture of America. Psychology can look into how advertising helps mold the decisions we make. And that's just lunch. As you move through the day, all of the different academic pursuits give insight into everything you do.

So why bring this up in the present context? I love teaching my students about the applications of oxidation/reduction chemistry. This refers to chemical transformations that involve moving around electrons. For instance this tells us how batteries work to produce a flow of electrons. In an electrolytic cell, a flow of electrons is used to drive some chemical reaction. One example of this is the smelting of aluminum. Aluminum ore exists as an oxide, Al₂O₃. In this compound, aluminum has a charge of +3. On the other hand, pure aluminum metal has a charge of 0. How do you go from +3 to 0? You add three negatively charged electrons. For some LEGO, here are aluminum bricks by Bram Lambrecht (and, yes, they do fit together with real LEGO bricks).



This process of producing pure aluminum metal, though, requires a lot of electricity. This brings us to the 1920's and 30's. The Army Corp of Engineers and Bureau of Land Reclamation were in the process of building a large number of dams as public works projects. This was in large part driven by FDR and the desire to create jobs during the Great Depression. One proposed dam was the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. Here's a song commissioned by Woody Guthrie to help promote federal dam projects and the BPA:



Dams could be justified economically by their ability to provide water for drinking and irrigation and also electricity. The problem was, at the time there was not a large enough population in the Pacific northwest to really require as much electricity as would be generated by this new hydroelectric dam. Here's a MOC of the Pitlochry Power Station in Scotland by Bricklove (I could swear I've seen a microscale version of the Grand Coulee Dam before, but now I can't find it, so this will do).


This opened the door to create new customers, including aluminum smelters. And what industry (aside from soda cans) most needed that aluminum? The then-growing aeronautics industry, of course. What major company is based in Seattle? Okay, yes, Starbucks, but also Boeing. There's a reason that they are based there - that's where the power and aluminum was. This growing productive capacity in the late 30's was key to the US war effort in the following decade. Quite frankly, the Axis had the rest of us on the ropes in the early years of WWII, aside from the heroic defense of Britain and the snows of Russia. But the US was relatively safe behind two oceans, and the industrial capacity fueled, in part, by hydroelectric power, helped create the weapons to beat back the forces of Germany and Japan. Here are MOCs of two of the Boeing planes that were so important in WWII, the B-17 Flying Fortress B-29 Superfortress by Orion Pax and Junlego, respectively. The B-17 was key in defeating the Germans, and the B-29 helped end the war over Japan.




There you have it, how Arlo Guthrie won the war. With a little help from electrochemistry and hydroelectric power.