Category: Chemistry

Fascinating Frequencies 6

For our final Fascinating Frequencies challenge, we will be using chemistry, physics, simulations, and orbits.

An experiment is held in space station orbiting earth from a geostationary orbit. Unfortunately, the scientists onboard forgot to properly secure one side of the space station. The side pointing prograde. Well, at least not retrograde, but their orbit is still messed up seriously. The reaction was between sodium and fluorine, with 19 kilograms fluorine and 23 kilograms sodium. The mass of the space station is 500 megagrams, including remaining fuel. How many grams of fuel must the scientists burn minimum to bring their rocket back to geostationary orbit? The scientists’ rocket fuses hydrogen and oxygen.

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Fascinating Frequencies 3

Some chemistry principles are required to solve this challenge.

Diagram of pond after being hit by rock. waves are just for illustration purposes and are not part of the problem.

In this Fascinating Frequencies challenge, we will cover fluid dynamics. A perfect homogeneous sphere with radius 10 cm and mass 1 kg hits the middle of a pond of pure water on earth. It’s velocity is 1 m/s downward. The temperature of the pond is a uniform 20° celsius. The pond will begin to ripple. There are no animals in the pond to interfere with this. The challenge is to calculate the frequency of the ripples.

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Confounding Crystals

Chemistry knowledge is needed to attempt this challenge.

Crystals are very interesting and beautiful. There are seven types of crystal shapes. Plagioclase feldspar makes triclinic crystals. You have one that’s a prism whose faces have areas 30 cm2, 35 cm2, and 42 cm2. The sides have lengths 3cm, 11cm, and 14cm. The challenge is to use what you know about triclinic crystals to determine what the angles of the crystal must be. This challenge may seem to be about math, but really it’s just a little bit of trig. The important part is that you know the defining features of triclinic crystals.

Solution

Perplexing Protons

You will need to use chemistry principles to solve this challenge.

You have some protons in a particle collider, but you don’t know how many. Your computers said there were 5 million at 12 noon based on their magnetic field. The problem is that you just found out that some electrons were leaking into the collider. You discovered the leak and patched it at 2pm. You know the electrons were leaking since 11 o’clock, and that they leaked at a constant rate. There are now 1 million electrons at 2:15, and they disrupted the magnetic field from which you counted the protons. However, some electrons collided with protons to make neutrons. You need to know how many protons there are for your experiment at 2:30. You don’t have time to count all the neutrons or recount the protons. You must figure it out based on the amount of energy released, which was 1 kilojoule. The challenge is to use the information above to determine the number of protons that will be in the collider at 2:30 if the rate of protons colliding with electrons is linearly proportional to the number of electrons.

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Baffling Bungee

This week’s science challenge requires the principals of physics and chemistry to solve.

Diagram of Baffling Bungee Jump.

Bob the bungee jumper goes bungee jumping over water on a cord made out of C5H8. The thickness of the rope is 3 centimetres. It’s natural length, the length it will have if not acted on by a force, is 1 metre. Bob starts the jump with a velocity vector with a magnitude of 1 metre per second and an angle of 45°. The lowest point of the jump is 1 metre above the water. Afterwards, the cord pulls Bob up to a stable position higher above the water. The challenge is to calculate the elasticity of the rope to figure out exactly how high.

Solution