{"id":193,"date":"2022-02-14T17:05:38","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T22:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/?p=193"},"modified":"2022-02-14T17:05:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T22:05:38","slug":"wrbp-community-radio-season-6-episode-6-carbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/?p=193","title":{"rendered":"WRBP | Community Radio – Season 6, Episode 6: Carbon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Season 6, Episode 6<\/strong>
February 27, 2022
Theme: <\/strong>Carbon
Playlist<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sitting at one of thirty desks in the school\u2019s chemistry lab, staring at the worksheet labeled Stoichiometry<\/strong>. Attempting \u2013 and failing \u2013 to complete this sheet is causing me to have one of the lowest moments of self-image I\u2019ve had in a year. I just don\u2019t understand how to balance these chemical equations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you remember doing this in high school? Adding coefficients to molecules to make sure that the law of conservation of matter was followed on both sides of a reaction. Was it hard for you too? It took what seemed like forever for me to understand it. And during that time, I hated it \u2013 hated the very idea that the people around me understood and I was as confused as a kindergartner learning algebra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But eventually, I figured it out. One of the people around me who understood it \u2013 my best friend, now that I really reflect on it \u2013 gave me advice, walked me through it, encouraged me. Over the next few weeks of work, I got to spend time with her and other friends, joking around, balancing equations, feeling good about the work. Tough work and discovery are made easier with a partner, and I had a great one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the cool thing about science, how nothing is discovered in isolation. The work builds upon prior work, and will generate additional ideas, hypotheses, experiments. Thus it was on February 27, 1940 that two scientists \u2013 working off others\u2019 assumption that there existed a long-lived isotope of carbon \u2013 were able to synthesize it. What Martin Kamen<\/a> and Sam Ruben<\/a> created had six protons but 8 neutrons, and is known as carbon-14. Then, nine years later, chemist Willard Libby developed a method of determining the age of something using that particular isotope of carbon. Most of us know this as carbon dating<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I can tell you those facts, but when I attempt to understand the details of the process of synthesis, or how cosmic rays are involved in the formation in carbon-14<\/a>, I\u2019m back in that desk, confused and uncertain. Thankfully, I\u2019m not beating myself up about it anymore. That\u2019s partly because I\u2019m a bit more mature and confident \u2013 but also because nobody\u2019s going to test me on my understanding of it. I\u2019m just here to make themes for this show. So, in celebration of this key element, our theme for episode 6 is Carbon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s the cool thing about science, how nothing is discovered in isolation. The work builds upon prior work, and will generate additional ideas, hypotheses, experiments. Thus it was on February 27, 1940 that two scientists – working off others’ assumption that there existed a long-lived isotope of carbon – were able to synthesize it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinpoints.community\/hey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}