I really like working with metals.
I like them because they seem to have a character.
That sounds weird but here's what I mean:
- You can only push metals so far. They will take a lot of bending, but not forever. At some point, they break.
- Metals forgive. But they don't forget. You can bend this way, then the opposite way. That's fine. You can even do it again. But even if you never bend that metal again, if someone else tries to start bending it in the same spot later, it will break sooner than it would have without that prior bending. In order to keep metals from tearing like this, you have to get the metal hot, almost glowing red. That smooths over the tension inside so it can bend again.
- Metals can be hammered into a thin sheet. In the case of gold it can be hammered into a sheet that is thinner than paper and is nearly transparent. It can be hammered to a thinness smaller than the wavelength of light.
- Shiny: I love the way metals can be polished to a reflective shine. It makes decorating with them so magical.
- Melting: When metals melt in small quantities, they tend to ball up into a sphere. This is just one more wondrous and magical-seeming quality. Reflective tiny red-hot liquid turns into a little protoplanet.
- Conduction of electricity: Because of the way metal atoms hold onto their outer electrons, it is easy to "push" electrons through a metal and the other electrons all slide down the metal wire at the speed of light. All these metal atoms just passing and passing down electrons and saying "thank you" for the next electrons that whizz by.
- Metal can be pulled into a wire: I don't think most people know this but right after melting, most metals can be pulled from a stick into a wire with enough force. This is like the strongest pizza cheese string imaginable.
I hope you've enjoyed & learned from this lighthearted post! Talk to me about your favorite metals and their properties in the comments. I didn't even mention mercury but go look up mercury videos, it's extremely cool!
Scientifically yours,
--Pam