Photo Contest - The Elements (2/20-2/26)

  • Thread starter Thread starter ZapperZ
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    photo contest
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

This thread discusses a photo contest themed around elements, where participants are invited to submit photographs that prominently feature objects made of or associated with a single chemical element. The conversation includes rules for submission and various entries from participants, showcasing their interpretations of the theme.

Discussion Character

  • Contest-related
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • One participant clarifies that the photo must represent a single element, providing examples like gold jewelry and aluminum cookware, while excluding compounds like table salt and water.
  • Another participant submits a photo titled "Ferrous Wheel," prompting a humorous response suggesting it resembles ferrous oxide.
  • A participant shares a photo of a single-crystal silicon wafer, emphasizing its high purity level.
  • Another entry features a solid niobium plug, described as a superconducting photocathode for an SRF electron gun.
  • A participant submits a photo of tungsten foil.
  • One entry mentions "mostly carbon," but does not provide further context.
  • A participant references mercury as "the forbidden element," indicating a submission related to it.
  • As the contest deadline approaches, a reminder is posted for final submissions.
  • Another participant submits a photo of a pencil, discussing the elements rhodium and carbon, and shares a personal anecdote about the importance of using a proper pencil for advanced mathematics.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the theme and rules of the contest, but there are playful disagreements regarding the interpretation of specific entries, such as the "Ferrous Wheel" comment. The discussion remains open with various interpretations and submissions without a consensus on the quality or appropriateness of each entry.

Contextual Notes

Participants express varying levels of adherence to the contest rules, with some entries potentially straddling the line between elements and compounds. The discussion reflects individual interpretations of the contest theme, which may lead to ambiguity in submissions.

ZapperZ
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Homework Helper
Insights Author
Messages
32,812
Reaction score
4,723
The Elements

For this contest, your photo must have, as its main subject, something that is made up of, or popularly identified with, a single element.

For example, your gold jewelry, even though it may contain a small amount of other elements, is identified usually as a single element of gold, i.e. Au. A lot of cookware are made of aluminum (with added impurities), and so it can be identified as the element aluminum, or Al.

However, you can't use things such as the regular table salt, since it has equal portions of Na and Cl, and it is a compound, not an element. The same with water since H2O is a compound.

Good luck!

Zz.

Contest Rules:

1. Any digital photo or digitally-scanned photo relevant to the theme will be accepted within the contest period. In case there's a gray area, or you're not sure if the picture is suitable, check with me first.

2. Please resize your digital photo to no more than 800 x 600 or 600 x 800 pixels. You may also crop your picture if you wish. You are also allowed to adjust the brightness and contrast of your picture but these should not dramatically alter the look of the picture. But other than those, any form of picture editing or modification is not allowed. This is a photo contest, not a picture editing/special effect contest. You may add a watermark or your name/nickname to the photo for identification purposes.

3. Upload your photos to any of the photo servers such as imageshack or photobucket. Then post it the relevant contest thread and link your picture using the img command. PM me if you do not know how.

4. Only ONE picture per member per contest. Once a picture is posted, it cannot be changed other than a total withdrawl by that member from that week's photo contest. Exceptions will be made for modification to comply with the rules, such as resizing.

5. At the end of the contest period, I will open a poll and every PF member can vote for the picture they like best.

6. Note that in case we have a large number of entries, I will do the polling in more than one thread. If that's the case, you can vote in each of the polling threads. The photos will be assigned in the polling threads in the order they were submitted.

7. The photo of the subject must be something that you took directly, not via in intermediary medium, and not taken by someone else. Unless otherwise noted, a photo of another photo, painting, print, etc. does not qualify.

8. You can use a picture only once. Once it is used in a contest, it cannot be reused in another contest.

9. Please post only pictures meant for submission in this thread. Photos not meant for submission must not be posted in the contest thread. Posting of more than one photos by a member may result in an automatic disqualification from the week's contest.

Zz.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Ferrous Wheel
_drill_zps8o4oomcl.JPG
 

Attachments

  • _drill_zps8o4oomcl.JPG
    _drill_zps8o4oomcl.JPG
    122.5 KB · Views: 484
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: zoobyshoe and collinsmark
Looks more like ferrous oxide to me. :oldwink:
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: dlgoff and fresh_42
Single-crystal silicon. This particular piece is a ten-nines wafer or 99.99999999% pure
Si_800x600.jpg
:
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: dlgoff
Solid niobium plug that becomes a superconducting photocathode for a SRF electron gun.

IMG_0205_zps0qyxskot.jpg


Zz.
 
Tungsten foil
Tungsten Foil.jpg
 
Mostly carbon.

marcin_the_elements.jpg
 
Hg, the forbidden element:

DSC_3614s_zpsbx6nbbau.jpg
 
Final day to submit your photo for this contest.

Zz.
 
  • #10
Rh (+C)

DSCN0117.jpg
Rh and C

Do I get points for rarity? The visible element that plates this object is rhodium. You can also see elemental carbon in the picture.

The object, for those who like me had forgotten them, is a pencil. It was on PF that I learned that proper mathematicians use them. This allows them to keep their pages neat and legible by rubbing out their mistakes, instead of the messy confusing pages I always ended up with. So in order to do advanced mathematics I obviously needed to acquire a pencil. Experience proved that the complement of a rubber, also illustrated, was indeed useful, almost necessary.

The cheap wooden pencils they sell to kids and students were obviously inadequate for the advanced mathematics of my ambitions. So I invested in more advanced technology, incorporating discoveries of Wollaston, Faraday and others. Anyway I have always been fascinated, for some reason, by rhodium, despite or maybe because of the paucity of its chemistry. And now I am not happy and feel held back doing maths with any other pencil. This technology has enabled my pathbreaking work on equivalent capacitances, which you can glimpse in the photo (as well as some elemental carbon) which was meritorious enough to be published in the prestigious journal, PF Homework Help.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
2K