Tag: chemistry

Salt

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
February 28, 1995
6 mins to read
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Okay, it’s pop quiz time. What mineral is used in greater quantities and for more purposes than any other? Give up? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the only mineral we sprinkle on both our roads and our French fries. That’s right: salt. Those innocuous little white crystals in the shaker on your table are …

Perfume

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
February 13, 1995
6 mins to read
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Our noses may be no great shakes compared to, say, that of the average poodle, but scent is still a powerful means of non-verbal communication for humans, even if we don’t rub our noses against everyone we meet, like our canine friends. The use of scents to make ourselves smell better goes back to ancient …

Food additives

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
August 22, 1994
5 mins to read
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It’s a national pastime. You buy a snack; then, while enjoying it, you read the label. “Contains Yellow #6, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate.” (All of which I found listed on a bottle of iced tea I bought recently.) It doesn’t usually stop you from eating or drinking (not me, anyway) but it does make …

Fertilizer

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
March 13, 1994
6 mins to read
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Just so I’m not operating under false pretenses, let’s get one thing straight: I don’t garden. I don’t seed, I don’t weed, I don’t plant, I don’t compost, and I don’t spread manure (this column excepted). My one connection with the plant world is mowing the grass, and I wouldn’t do that if I had …

Glue

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
February 28, 1994
7 mins to read
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Since I only wear glasses late at night when I take out my contacts, for the past couple of years I’ve been making do with an old pair of frames broken in two places: the nose piece and the right earpiece. I must have glued them back together a dozen times, but the repairs never …

Plastic

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
January 31, 1994
5 mins to read
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I vividly remember a science fiction book I read as a kid about the destruction of civilization by a new strain of bacteria. It didn’t kill people: it ate plastic. Electronic equipment disintegrated, clothes dissolved, airplanes fell apart, buildings burned–modern society ceased to function, so dependent had it become on plastic. If our ancestors lived …

Soap

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
November 8, 1993
6 mins to read
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As any child of the television age knows, among the most important decisions one faces in life is which kinds of soaps and detergents to use. The consequences of not having clothes that are cleaner than clean and brighter than bright, or of using the wrong brand of cleanser on your pearly skin, are too …

Water softeners

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
September 27, 1992
5 mins to read
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Not long after I first moved into a house from an apartment, I woke in the night to the sound of rushing water from the basement. Groggily, I investigated, visions of finding all my boxes of junk afloat dancing in my sleep-fogged brain, only to discover that all that noise came from a cabinet-sized device …

The physics of fizz, the chemistry of cool

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
July 21, 1991
5 mins to read
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Ah, summertime! Time to get away from it all; to sit in the shade with a cold soft drink or a bowl of delicious homemade ice cream (such as the batch I made Saturday). Doesn’t seem very conducive to thinking about science, does it? Think again. Consider that soft drink (or any other bubbling brew) …

Ozone

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
July 3, 1991
5 mins to read
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Submitted for your consideration: a blue, pungent gas that used to be simple oxygen –but now is something quite different. You are about to enter…the O-Zone. Ozone, at first gasp, doesn’t seem like something to be concerned about. Normal oxygen molecules–the ones we breath–consist of two oxygen atoms. Add one more, and you get ozone. …