• Question: What is patacium

    Asked by katie1998 to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Potassium is one of the elements of the periodic table. It is a very soft metal, so soft you can cut it with a knife! It also is very reactive with water. If you put some potassium in water it will go bang, and give up a lot of purple sparks.

      Potassium is vital for animal life, without it our nerves do not work properly.

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I remember doing potassium-in-water in practical in Chemistry when I was doing GCSE – it was great!

    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      It’s very important for a nervous system. I ahve been told if you get cramp eating a banana will help as bananas have lots of potassium!

    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      AND you can use potassium compounds as baking powder :-)!

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      And the chemical symbol for potassium is K, just to be confusing.

Comments

  • Photo: chelss

    chelss commented on :

    talking of banannas if you eat 7 one after the other is there a chance of you dying due to the amount of potassium in them? or is this just made up?

    • Photo: Vera

      Vera commented on :

      I never heard fo that. No idea!

      BTW the chemical symbol is K because the German word for potassioum is Kalium. In the old days when German was still the language of science (bad idea, I reckon), the elements were given German names. Like N, Sodium (Natrium in German).

    • Photo: Sam

      Sam commented on :

      I’m not sure if seven would be enough but I think if you ate too many bananas you could die from potassium. But then I also heard that Peter Andre once nearly did this, so it might not be true after all…