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Yes, everything heavier than hydrogen and helium is called metals by astronomers. It's a misleading term for the public, but very widely employed. (I'm an astr
by astrolx 4y ago
Yes, everything heavier than hydrogen and helium is called metals by astronomers. It's a misleading term for the public, but very widely employed.
(I'm an astronomer)
- kzrdude 4y agoSo it's a three-element periodic table: Hydrogen, Helium, Metals. :)
- hermitcrab 4y agoReminds me of numbers for database programmers - 0, 1 and many.
- mpweiher 4y agoYes. And that's giving far too much weight to the Metals ;-) (1% of total mass) The universe really is just Hydrogen + Helium + rounding error...
- kzrdude 4y agoI heard there might be interesting stuff happening with the metals though. They are self-conscious and stuff?
- simonh 4y agoThe jury’s out on that metaphysically speaking, but even if so that’s a rounding error of the rounding error. This handy chart breaking down the universe by subject area is a useful guide. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2640:_The_Universe_by_Scientific_Field https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2640:_The_Univers...
- dan353hehe 4y agoWait, the metal talks? And it thinks with its metal?
- dekhn 4y agothe metal sings! they can sing by squirting air through their metal!
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoIt's really metal through their metal
- lubujackson 4y agoThey're Made of Meat -> They're Made of Metal: way cooler
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoYes, they are pretty self-conscious. E.g. gold constantly thinks she's looking too yellow.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Eupraxias 4y agoActually, I've heard it called just "Hydrogen and Dirty Hydrogen"
- moffkalast 4y agoThe universe is a zeppelin
- quickthrower2 4y agoNot a led zeppelin though
- ant6n 4y agoBut a metal zeppelin
- quickthrower2 4y agoHydrogen is a metal? You must be a very early universe astrophysicist
- mysterydip 4y agoI would've aced my chemistry class!
- Keyframe 4y agoFour actually. There are also heavy metals
- ithkuil 4y agoHydrogen, helium, light metal, and heavy metal
- GolfPopper 4y agoCan't we just consider the heavy metal noise?
- agentwiggles 4y agoAC/DC published a study in 1980 asserting that rock and roll ain't noise pollution.
- jacquesm 4y agoDoesn't this have to do with the formation of those elements? As in 'anything heavier than helium is a metal because it was formed in the explosion of a first generation star'? Rather than the chemical definition of what a metal is they probably should have used '2nd generation or later elements' but then again, computer programmers call little boxes with wires attached to them 'mice' and nobody bats an eye (and in fact, that use has now become commonplace).
- jagger27 4y agoWith the small exception of a tiny bit of lithium made before star formation, yes.
- jacquesm 4y agoBy what process was that Lithium created?
- astrolx 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem#Lithium_synthesis_in_the_Big_Bang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_lithium_problem#L...
- credit_guy 4y agoOk, completely unrelated, but here's a riddle: how many nuclear reactions are there in a thermonuclear bomb? 1. Fission of the plutonium pit 2. Fusion of a small amount of deuterium-tritium at the center of the plutonium pit (designed to be a source of extra neutrons to boost the yield of the plutonium fission) 3. Fission of Lithium-6. Yep, Lithium can undergo fission when bombarded with neutrons. It can't sustain chain reaction, but it's fission nonetheless. The main idea is to generate Tritium, which goes into the next phase, but the energy generated during the fission of Lithium is nothing to sneeze at. Pound for pound, it generates about as much energy as the plutonium. 4. Fusion of the hydrogen (tritium produced from the previous step, and deuterium that's stored in the form of Lithium Deuteride from the beginning) 5. Fission of a rod of plutonium in the middle of the cylinder containing the hydrogen (fission is returning the favor and boosts the fusion reaction) 6. Fission of the uranium temper. The main point of the uranium temper is to be heavy and contain the nuclear reactions for a tiny bit of time, so more generations of reactions can happen, but the secondary outcome is that some of the U-238 nuclei will undergo fission when bombarded by the neutrons from the inside of the bomb.
- MauranKilom 4y agoGiving rise to this parody of sorts: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2340:_Cosmologist_Genres https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2340:_Cosmologist...