Recent content by Borek

  1. Borek

    Chemistry Why percent yield sometimes less than 100% in chemistry experiments?

    No way to produce more, mass conservation doesn't allow for that (in a way stoichiometry is an elaborate way of saying "matter is not lost nor created"). So it is always a problem with measuring or impurities (if it was a water based reaction most common problem is drying the product before...
  2. Borek

    Why is AuCl4 an anion?

    No idea why you think it should be otherwise, you start with somethin that is +3 charged and combine it with 4 -1 charges, no way it can produce anything but anion. Lack of ionic bonding doesn't matter - SO42- is also an anion despite not having ionic bonding. Or is your question why it...
  3. Borek

    Cyano substituted hydrazines

    Thing is, space is quite an exotic place - very low pressure, very low temperature, molecules are so separated they very rarely have occasion to interact with each other. That promotes highly unusual reaction paths which are quite interesting, it is just that reactors with volume measured in...
  4. Borek

    Rubber tyre “melting” inside, turned to deadly goo. Why?

    Interesting. I have read about similar technology were in the rubber there were tiny sealed ampoules with glue, they were intended to tear open when the rubber is breaking (for any reason) and to seal out the hole. Sounds like a safer and more convenient approach (both for wrens and users).
  5. Borek

    Rubber tyre “melting” inside, turned to deadly goo. Why?

    Possible, but still a bit strange - it wasn't exposed to temperatures other than it would be on the car, and somehow I don't think goo inside the tyre is something desired.
  6. Borek

    KSR's Red Mars - Molecular sieve breathing mask

    No, you can have a third, inert gas inside. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out, inert gas stays inside and its amount is constant, keeping the pressure identical to the outside. I don't see how to get a mask working in conditions given without some additional pump. RO doesn't work against a pressure...
  7. Borek

    Question about lead & lead vapor

    Just a comment: if you see a liquid (whatever, be it water, molten metal, anything), there is a vapor over it. The question is not whether it "can" evaporate (answer is yes, always, actually there is even some vapor over solids), question is "how fast" (and here I doubt you will get a better...
  8. Borek

    Is A.I. more than the sum of its parts?

    Google for "emergent properties". And this basically boils down to eons old discussion between reductionists and their opponents. Don't expect clear answers, more like more and more questions.
  9. Borek

    Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics

    What it tries to say is that the relationship holds precisely only for ideal gas (pointlike molecules with zero volume, no interactions other than elastic collisions), and that the lower the pressure, the closer the real gas is to the ideal gas. This is quite common in the real systems, you...
  10. Borek

    Do light bulbs store energy?

    It is enough that one of them failed and shorted in any way (and for whatever internal reason) to burn two others as they are under 400 V now. That's actually the most likely explanation of what happened.
  11. Borek

    Do light bulbs store energy?

    Perhaps I am missing something, but what kind of li-ion batteries produces over 800V? As far as I am aware it is 4.2 V per fully charged cell, to get to 800+ volts you need almost 200 cells - but connected in series.
  12. Borek

    Chemistry Understanding Reaction Quotient and Molarity

    Equilibrium process. ICE is just a convenient way of dealing with the math involved (you can call it "math device"), but it doesn't define any property of the system, it just helps describing the principle of mass conservation with equations.
  13. Borek

    Solvents for cleaning soap film?

    5% HCl is 1.4 M, that's already quite concentrated in the context of just changing pH (yields pH in the zero range, that's seriously acidic). I would start around 1% (which is probably an overkill as well).
  14. Borek

    Chemistry Understanding Reaction Quotient and Molarity

    You are right in your first paragraph, but I feel like you are misunderstanding some basics here. Stoichiometry (described by the reaction reaction equation) and equilibrium are two separate (although in practice closely related) concepts. Reaction equation describes the stoichiometry, and can...