Building Blocks

By Roger Colins

Building blocks A short essay on what glass is made of, and what that stuff is made of.  Most of us are aware that sand has something to do with glass, that silica has something to do with sand and that somewhere in between silica has something to do with glass. Let's begin with Gorilla glass as it is fairly new as far as glass goes and you might have a bit of it in your hand. The first, main components of Gorilla glass are; _________________________________________________________________ Alkali-aluminosilicate minerals. - Alkali metals are a small number of chemical elements; barium (Ba), beryllium (Be), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), radium (Ra) and strontium (Sr). Using these metals to swap ions on the surface of glass toughens it, making it more difficult to scratch. Plain, transparent glass - Aluminosilicate (Al2SiO5) is a mineral composed of; aluminium (Al), silicon dioxide (SiO2) and oxygen (O2). The three are fused together with heat to make, glass. The glass is then put in contact with monovalent ions, heat is again applied in order to swap them for the smaller alkali metal ions in the glass. Chemical Elements Atomic structure of Glass The periodic table is a collection of pure chemical elements. Aluminium is a pure chemical element. Bonding two or more pure chemical elements together produces a compound chemical element such as silicon dioxide; Silicon and Oxygen. Monovalent Ions - Monovalent. Valence is another word for the bonds you see between atoms that hold them together and mono, means one. - Ions. Simply any atom that have a net positive or negative charge because the electrons and protons of the atom are not evenly balanced. Atoms Constituent parts of an atom All the pure chemical elements are representative of a single atom, each with it's own unique atomic number. The atomic number represents the number of protons in it's nucleus (the electrons too, as they have to be the same in number as the protons). If you have two or more atoms conjoined to each other with our valent bonds you have, a molecule.  An atom is comprised of electrons surrounding a nucleus which is in turn comprised of protons and neutrons (except Hydrogen-1 which has no neutron); - Electron. An elementary, negatively charged subatomic particle that has about 0.05% the mass of a proton. An electron is a fermion, a grouping for subatomic particles which means it has a specific spin. - Proton. A composite, positively charged subatomic particle made of three quarks. Two up quarks and two down quarks. Protons are also fermions. - Neutron. Also a composite particle made of one up quark and two down quarks. Neutrons are neither positive nor negatively charged and have a mass slightly bigger than a proton. Neutrons fall under the hadron group, the same as protons. Quarks One Proton = Three Quarks Another elementary particle, they get together to form hadrons which are composite particles such as neutrons and protons. Quarks are never found on their own, they only ever exist together to form hadrons. There are six types of quarks known lovingly as flavours; -Up. An elementary fermion with the lowest mass of all quarks. Up quarks experience all four fundamental interactions; Gravitation, electromagnetism, weak and strong interactions. -Down. Almost exactly the same as an Up Quark but with a slightly larger mass. -Strange (or S Quark). Heavier still than a down quark. -Charm (or C Quark). Heavier than a strange quark. -Bottom. A Bottom quark is a lot heavier than a charm quark, weighing in at nearly four times the mass of of a proton. -Top. A top quark is appropriately named as it is not only the heaviest quark but the heaviest of all elementary particles. Due to it's enormous mass, top quarks are much used in particle experiments. Fermions and Bosons Fermions include electrons, protons and quarks, all have a half integer spin. Half-integers are half of an odd number of integers and any composite particle made of an odd number, is a fermion. If a particle has a full integer, it is a Boson. All other elementary particles that are not Bosons are Fermions. Bosons are like the glue for the fermions as they can occupy two different quantum states/space at the same time, where Fermions cannot. To ask you to travel any further into the minuscule of Hadrons, Baryons, Mesons and beyond would be asking you to enter a zoo of umbrellas. As you can see there is a lot that goes into making the screen you're looking at and this is just one trifling example of how building blocks are put together. Everything else in the universe works exactly the same way. One brick on top of the other and there is no mystery except what is beyond either end. The make up of subatomic particles yet to be discovered, more complex materials yet to be invented. What is in the middle is sure, physical, chemical, matter.

physics chemistry subatomic_particles  glass chemical_elements atoms quarks fermions_and_bosons