• Question: What is your favourite element?

    Asked by josieeeeb to Claire, Matt, Sam, Kate, Rob on 17 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by emilyherbert, emmaleung, emilyhuet.
    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Hydrogen – it’s easy to understand compared to more complicated ones (only one proton and one electron), and it makes up most of the universe, which makes it important for what I do. But oxygen is also pretty important for keeping me alive. Carbon is also important for life. But my job is to study stars, which are mostly made of hydrogen, so that’s my answer!

    • Photo: Claire Lee

      Claire Lee answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Am I a really bad nerd because I don’t have a favourite element?

      I wasn’t a huge fan of chemistry actually. But what’s those ones that explode in water – I think potassium is in that group. Potassium is pretty cool 🙂

    • Photo: Robert Woolfson

      Robert Woolfson answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      Mercury, very toxic but very cool.

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      As a geochemist this is a reeeeallly hard question! I think Gallium (chemical symbol Ga)- pure gallium kept at fridge temperatures (don’t mix it with food!) is solid, but put it in your hand and it melts! So it has the awesome properties box ticked. Also, it’s important for tracing how the earth works inside. Gallium is a passenger in how rocks and minerals form, so understanding how Gallium behaves is a good way of working out how the rocks work. And finally – hardly anyone has heard of it – so it’s mysterious!
      check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aolRO9eteSk , maybe watch the first little bit then skip a few minutes – it doesn’t happen quickly 🙂

    • Photo: Kate Husband

      Kate Husband answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      I’ve never really thought about this before but similar to Sam the element I study most is hydrogen as over 2/3rds of the universe is hydrogen.

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