Tag Archives: elements series
Elements Series: Carbon Painting
Painting number 3 of the 50 Paintings for 2012 goal, now available as a standard greeting card or museum-quality fine art print from 6×8 to 48×72 inches.
The third in the Element series, Carbon (from Latin: carbo “coal”) is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6, containing 6 protons and 6 electrons. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent– making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity.
There are several allotropes of carbon of which the best known are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon. The physical properties of carbon vary widely with the allotropic form. For example, diamond is highly transparent, while graphite is opaque and black. Diamond is among the hardest materials known, while graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper (hence its name, from the Greek word “to write”). Diamond has a very low electrical conductivity, while graphite is a very good conductor. Under normal conditions, diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of all known materials.
Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It is present in all known life forms, and in the human body carbon is the second most abundant element by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen. This abundance, together with the unique diversity of organic compounds and their unusual polymer-forming ability at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth, make this element the chemical basis of all known life.
(Visit Wikipedia for the complete original article on Carbon.)
Hydrogen Painting: First of the Elements Series
Painting number 1 of the 50 Paintings for 2012 goal, now available as a standard greeting card or museum-quality fine art print from 6×8 to 45×60 inches.
Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element in the universe, making up 75% of normal matter by mass and over 90% by number of atoms. This element is found in great abundance in stars and gas giant planets. Molecular clouds of H2 are associated with star formation. Hydrogen plays a vital role in powering stars through proton-proton reaction and CNO cycle nuclear fusion.
Throughout the universe, hydrogen is mostly found in the atomic and plasma states whose properties are quite different from molecular hydrogen. As a plasma, hydrogen’s electron and proton are not bound together, resulting in very high electrical conductivity and high emissivity (producing the light from the Sun and other stars). The charged particles are highly influenced by magnetic and electric fields. For example, in the solar wind they interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere giving rise to Birkeland currents and the aurora. Hydrogen is found in the neutral atomic state in the Interstellar medium.
Under ordinary conditions on Earth, elemental hydrogen exists as the diatomic gas, H2. However, hydrogen gas is very rare in the Earth’s atmosphere (1 ppm by volume) because of its light weight, which enables it to escape from Earth’s gravity more easily than heavier gases. However, hydrogen is the third most abundant element on the Earth’s surface, mostly in the form of chemical compounds such as hydrocarbons and water. The name hydrogen comes from the Greek words hudor (water) and gennan (generate).
(Visit Wikipedia for the complete original article on Hydrogen.)