The story of non-living things
It is not only living things that have a story; non-living things do too. This section follows 11 materials through three stops: which star made their atoms, how they formed on Earth, and how people used them.
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Where did the gasoline go?
Does the gasoline burned in a car just turn to vapour? Its atoms' journey from the sea to the exhaust and on to trees.
Metal or nonmetal? The four families of elements
Which family an element belongs to depends on how its outermost electrons behave: does it give them away easily, take them, share them, or ignore the whole business?
- Fe
Iron
Where did iron come from?
- Fe + C
Steel
How did steel come about?
- Au
Gold
Where did gold come from?
- C
Diamond and graphite
Why are diamond and pencil lead so different?
- H₂O
Water
Where did water come from?
- NaCl
Salt
How did salt form?
- SiO₂
Sand and glass
How does sand become glass?
- C
Coal
How did coal form?
- CₙHₘ
Oil
Is oil made from dinosaurs?
- Cu
Copper
How did copper become humanity's first metal?
- Ca
Calcium: bone and marble
What do bones and marble have in common?
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between steel and iron?
Steel is iron with less than 2% carbon added. The carbon atoms make it hard for layers of iron atoms to slip, so steel is much harder and tougher than pure iron.
Why is gold so rare?
Gold is not made in ordinary stellar fire; most of it was probably forged in rare, violent events such as neutron star collisions. On top of that, most of Earth's gold sank into the core with iron as the planet formed.
Is oil made from dinosaurs?
No. Oil formed mostly from microscopic sea life (plankton and algae) buried on the sea floor and heated over millions of years.
If everything is made of atoms, what separates a human from an iron mine?
Less the kind of atoms than their arrangement. Iron ore is a crystal that repeats the same small pattern and stays that way if left alone. A human is an arrangement built from the information in DNA, kept standing only by constant energy use, with atoms constantly replaced, and able to copy itself. Like diamond and graphite: same atom, different order, a completely different thing.