10: Thorium and Osmium (12 Days of Christmas)
Two exotic elements make for unusual gifts... Tenth of 12 parts, each featuring chemistry gifts received by Sir Martyn during the year. All the videos in this series appear here as they're...
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On the 10th day of christmas we have two really quite unusual elements which you might not have seen before. We have Osmium (76) which is one of the few metals that's blue and this is a very beautiful crystalline example. if you look (at it), it sparkles as you move your head. Osmium is one of the densest metals. It has arguably the highest melting point. There is some argument whether it's Iridium (77) or osmium. They are very close together and they are both very high. The other element is the hardest one to get hold of of any element up to Uranium (92) and this is Thorium, which is element number 90. So, this was a present from Max Whitby and Theo Gray who are specialists in preparing samples of the elements. Thorium is particularly hard t...
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On the 10th day of christmas we have two really quite unusual elements which you might not have seen before. We have Osmium (76) which is one of the few metals that's blue and this is a very beautiful crystalline example. if you look (at it), it sparkles as you move your head. Osmium is one of the densest metals. It has arguably the highest melting point. There is some argument whether it's Iridium (77) or osmium. They are very close together and they are both very high. The other element is the hardest one to get hold of of any element up to Uranium (92) and this is Thorium, which is element number 90. So, this was a present from Max Whitby and Theo Gray who are specialists in preparing samples of the elements. Thorium is particularly hard t...
