Chemical Element
TITLE: The Elements Author: Theodore Gray Pages: 200
Genre: Non-Fiction Name: Sooraj Shah Date: 1/30/11
Plot Summary: I will be talking about 3 elements in the plot summary because there is no plot in the book. Each page is just talking about an element, so you could start anywhere in the book if you wanted to. The first element I will discuss is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table and is the most reactive. It only has one proton and one electron. It is the most abundant element in the universe. It is cheap to buy and it was used in some ships a long time ago. It didn’t go so well. Another fact about hydrogen is that our sun converts 600,000,000 tons of hydrogen into 596,000,000 million tons of helium. The rest of it is converted into energy (according to Einstein’s law: E= mc2) and is sent to earth. That makes the light of dawn, the heat of summer, and the fading glow at dusk. The next element I will discuss is cerium. (The only reason I am doing this one is because it is use in flint and steel strikers to make FIRE, and I love fire). On earth, cerium is almost as abundant as copper and is very inexpensive. It is mainly use in the form of cerium oxide which is use for grinding and polishing glass. Another use for it is in flint and steel strikers and lighter flints. When you scrape in with a sharp piece of steel, the shavings that come off catch fire and come down as a bunch of sparks. It is used for starting fires and is a tool that you should carry when you go into the woods. Cerium and the element before, lanthanum are both used for dramatic spark effects in movies. They get a big block of it and put it to a grinder. Its atomic number is 58 and its chemical symbol is Ce. The last element I will discuss is neodymium. It is the best known out of the lanthanide series out of rare earths because of the one and only neodymium magnets. They are the strongest magnets in the world and there are many purposes for them
Genre: Non-Fiction Name: Sooraj Shah Date: 1/30/11
Plot Summary: I will be talking about 3 elements in the plot summary because there is no plot in the book. Each page is just talking about an element, so you could start anywhere in the book if you wanted to. The first element I will discuss is hydrogen. Hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table and is the most reactive. It only has one proton and one electron. It is the most abundant element in the universe. It is cheap to buy and it was used in some ships a long time ago. It didn’t go so well. Another fact about hydrogen is that our sun converts 600,000,000 tons of hydrogen into 596,000,000 million tons of helium. The rest of it is converted into energy (according to Einstein’s law: E= mc2) and is sent to earth. That makes the light of dawn, the heat of summer, and the fading glow at dusk. The next element I will discuss is cerium. (The only reason I am doing this one is because it is use in flint and steel strikers to make FIRE, and I love fire). On earth, cerium is almost as abundant as copper and is very inexpensive. It is mainly use in the form of cerium oxide which is use for grinding and polishing glass. Another use for it is in flint and steel strikers and lighter flints. When you scrape in with a sharp piece of steel, the shavings that come off catch fire and come down as a bunch of sparks. It is used for starting fires and is a tool that you should carry when you go into the woods. Cerium and the element before, lanthanum are both used for dramatic spark effects in movies. They get a big block of it and put it to a grinder. Its atomic number is 58 and its chemical symbol is Ce. The last element I will discuss is neodymium. It is the best known out of the lanthanide series out of rare earths because of the one and only neodymium magnets. They are the strongest magnets in the world and there are many purposes for them