Tantalum - Tales from the Periodic Table

[@greegearl1542]

Excellent video about Tantalum! Thank you!! I cannot wait to until the Tungsten video!!!

[@ronhipschman]

Working on it! Revising Carbon too.

[@alexadams7246]

I know nothing about the periodic table or the breakdown of elements and I was able to understand everything in this video. Great job and thank you!

[@ronhipschman]

Great to hear! Check out the video on just the periodic table: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZDOZZV4qK2ciNk Ron

[@erickiplimo]

Tantalizing!

[@ronhipschman]

Ouch.

[@erickiplimo]

​@@ronhipschmaninteresting Greek mythology. Background set!

[@sydhenderson6753]

Tantalum looks like it would make really good jewelry, again like niobium. And it's not poisonous!

[@ronhipschman]

And, it's relatively inexpensive...

[@johnfoster6412]

Re Elves and Mithril. Mithril was discovered by Dwarves in the First Age, and mined by them. Celebrimdor the Elf, a Noldor prince living in Eregion in the Second Age, was taught how to work mithril by Attanatar, the Lord of Gifts, also known as Sauron.

[@ronhipschman]

I bow to your extensive knowledge of Middle Earth! Mine is limited to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. You should face off with Stephen Colbert! Ron

[@ISMAILOMAR_ISH3000]

Mozambique or DRC?? I think you meant DRC

[@ronhipschman]

Interesting. The text said Mozambique, but you are correct that the map highlights the DRC. Hmmm. Ron

[@michaelmontana251]

What does the m1 after 180 mean?

[@ronhipschman]

Michael, Basically, it points to an excited state of the nucleus, m1 being the lowest energy state for that isotope. Just as electrons can occupy lower and higher energy states, so to can the particles in the nucleus. The "m" stands for "metastable" since these are usually short-lived. However in the case of Tantalum-180m1 it lasts for more than 10^15 years (the longest for any nuclear excited state, by the way...) Good article at: www.thoughtco.com/nuclear-isomer-definition-4129399#:~:text=Metastable%20and%20Ground%20State%20Notation&text=The%20first%20metastable%20state%20is,178m2%20or%20178m272Hf). Ron

[@brfisher1123]

Yikes! To put that boiling point of 5,458 degrees C to perspective: that is just below the temperature of the sun's surface (ignoring the sunspots) which I believe is 5,600 degrees C! However, I think tungsten might be one of the few elements that might actually survive being vaporized on the sun's surface!!!! BTW for those who didn't know: "observationally stable" simply means "theoretically shouldn't be stable but hasn't been observed to decay" as no one really mentions what "observationally stable" really means.

[@sydhenderson6753]

Tantalum 180m has a nuclear spin of 9 while Tantalum 180 has spin 1 and Hafnium 180 and Tungsten has spin 0 the only other isotope it could theoretically decay into is Lutetium 176 by alpha decay (and a couple of gamma rays at the same time). It's really hard to lose 8 units of spin at one go, so it may have a half life much longer that that minimum.

[@ronhipschman]

Hence the ">" next to the estimated half-life... Ron

[@sydhenderson6753]

@@ronhipschman I'm guessing a longer halflife that the tellurium isotope that holds the record.

[@brfisher1123]

@@sydhenderson6753I'm aware that basically tantalum-180m "wants to" decay and/or de-excite but is having trouble achieving that due to requiring to lose many units of angular momentum in order to do so as a result of its high nuclear spin.

[@ronhipschman]

I believe there are longer half-lives. Bismuth 209, which we normally consider "stable" is listed having a half-life of 2.01x10^19 years. That beats the pants off of Tellurium!

[@sillysad3198]

CAPACITORS!!!! those Ta caps do not dry. they are eternal, unlike normal electrolythics.

[@ronhipschman]

Noted. Ron

[@sillysad3198]

@@ronhipschman i have no idea, tho, how exactly they achived that, and also higher temperature stability.

[@shankysays]

So much tantrum 😂