• Question: Hey paul, can you tell me some interesting facts about chemistry?

    Asked by paisleyyy to Paul on 13 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Paul Brack

      Paul Brack answered on 13 Jun 2015:

      Er…I know loads. Where to start :-D?

      Water is really weird; if it wasn’t so weird we probably wouldn’t be here. For example, when most things freeze they get heavier, but when water freezes it gets lighter! This means that the oceans don’t freeze from the bottom up, and so things can live down in the depths.

      The only elements that are liquid at room temperature are bromine and mercury.

      The only thing stopping the aluminium foil you wrap your sandwiches in from reacting violently with water to make hydrogen is a tiny, tiny layer of a few nanometres (1 billionth of a metre) of aluminium oxide which forms on the aluminium surface in air.

      Sulfur containing molecules are often incredibly smelly, stinking like rotten eggs.

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