Not all your Atoms are Stardust
You may have heard "We're all stardust," but that's not actually true. Most elements on the periodic table have surprisingly weird origins like neutron star mergers or even the big bang itself.
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Nick Lucid - Host, Writer, Editor, Animator
Em Lucid - Producer
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SOURCES
NASA Periodic Table of Origins:
svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13873/
Scientific Papers:
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/197...
arxiv.org/abs/1710.05450
arxiv.org/abs/1710.05843
arxiv.org/abs/1710.05858
arxiv.org/abs/1710.05843
arxiv.org/abs/1710.05841
iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract...
Written for General Audience:
www.forbes.com/sites/startswi...
www.caltech.edu/about/news/li...
blog.sdss.org/2017/01/09/orig...
www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/...
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IMAGE/VIDEO CREDITS
Supernova:
svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13578
Neutron Star Merger:
svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12740/
svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14209/
LIGO Stuff:
www.ligo.caltech.edu/image/li...
www.ligo.org/science/Publicat...
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TIME CODES
00:00 Intro
00:58 The Big Bang
02:39 Fusion in Stars
04:44 Supernovas
06:30 Abundancy
08:37 Cosmic Rays
11:54 Neutron Capture
14:09 Neutron Star Mergers
17:33 Summary
19:13 Featured Comment
19:33 Surprise Surprise!
A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “How much for a drink?” The bartender says, “For you, no charge.”
😆 Funny every time.
Hurry up before you become a proton!
Oh no, you just started a chaim reaction... The bartender says, "We don't serve faster than light particles in here." A tachyon walks into a bar
Love this joke.
meh, I'm neutral
I’m a silversmith, sometimes I take a minute to appreciate that the silver I’m using came from the merger of neutron stars. It’s pretty awesome.
I remember when that the first real evidence was found for the creation of such elements in mergers that there was a sort of joke made that the explosions that result - now known as _kilonovae_ - should be called "blingnovae" :) (The other term is because it's about 1000 times brighter than a nova, but not quite as bright as a supernova.)
It's even more amazing to me that it all ended up in discrete chunks in the Earth's crust.
RV guy u@@shimrrashai-rc8fq
@@rfichokeofdestinyYes, that takes some thorough mixing for a long time, before it clumps together into a planet like Earth. Like a dough, you put in all the ingredients in big chunks, but the mixing dillutes all the ingredients, so that they are roughly the same amount present at each location in the dough. I also wonder how nebulae can stay nebulae for so long to mix everything through, before gravity finally makes stars and planets out of it.
The silversmith using neutron stars merger as the source of his material remembers me of Mjölnir
“Not only do stars have to die to create elements, they have to die twice.” - Kurzgesagt
That's some good writing they did there.
I heard that in my mind with the Kurzgesagt voice.
@ScienceAsylum: How come that all the well conducting metals (silver copper aluminium gold ) have an odd number of protons/electrons, and therefore are less abundant than others? As an EE, I therefore feel discriminated...
@@Oldclunker-ge5zp I think aluminium is fairly abundant. In top ten I believe.
@@Oldclunker-ge5zp If I were to guess, it's because the property of spin that electrons have. Atoms prefer to have their electrons in spin-pairs. When electron spins are paired up, the atom becomes much more stable meaning there's less incentive for the electrons to dissociate from the core nucleus, making the atom less conductive, but this this stability also means that that atoms are more likely to "settle down" towards energies with more stable spin states. The consequence of this would be that you have a lower abundance of elements who are happy with giving up their electrons, as those elements would naturally be less stable during formation. If there are any graduates in the comments dealing with either quantum or nuclear physics, please correct any and all of my inaccuracies. Thanks!
The important thing for my own understanding is that the heavier the elements, the more spectacular and mind-blowing the origin.
Indeed! It got weirder as we went down on the chart.
Even weirder if you think about neutron stars, just 1 neutron before collapse into a black hole... The one with lower angular momentum wins. ^^
I like imagining scenarios where we find elements we consider artificial floating around in space.
i wouldnt call the big bang mundane though :)
@@ScienceAsylumMay I ask whether the physicists wonder what seems to be the reason why Tc is left out from all of the neutron capture processes ever happened in the past? Thank you for your video, it answered many of my concerns perfectly.
Dude, you need to include your favorite Stardust in more content. She's a natural and brilliant
So 62% of me is 13.7 billion years old, can I start collecting social security now?
They raised the eligibility age to 13.8 billion years, so you're getting close.
They raised the eligibility to 63%, so you're shit out of luck.
@@rustyshackelford1413 shut up, Dale ...😂
Some say its twice that now. Hm . It will be a loooong wait either way huh ? @cdprince768
If you count fundamental particles, over 99% of you is 13.8 billion years old
Not all hydrogen was created during the big bang as proton emission does create new hydrogen when the proton captures an electron.
Exactly And we still also see pair production, and it's feasible for a proton to escape and an older particle annihilate with the negatron
Isn’t a proton all by itself technically already hydrogen, albeit in it’s ion form?
@@ScubaDaveGSXR Yes and no, most proton emissions end up with the proton being absorbed into another nucleus so it doesn't technically creates hydrogen, at least not for the long term. Overall about three quarters of all hydrogen and about a quarter of all helium was created during the condensation period (the first couple of minutes after the big bang) the rest was created by various other reactions primarily once stelar fusion kicked in.
Given that beryllium is made by cosmic rays, it seems amazing that somehow the beryllium gets concentrated enough on Earth for ores of it to be mined.
If memory serves, cosmic rays can strike oxygen and nitrogen atoms in Earth's atmosphere, causing spallation into lithium, beryllium, and boron, which then falls to Earth and can concentrate (via water sources) into ores. Over billions of years of these things, you get places like Boron, California (home of the world's largest borax mine!), where the boron concentrated and can be mined.
@@BronzeDragon133 Interesting. So, is the concentrating of beryllium basically its tendency to form crystals?
@@BronzeDragon133 I was hoping that ScienceAsylum guy was going to talk about such things (how the different atoms get incorporated into earth), such as you mentioned for boron. Maybe he will in a future video.
@@OrdenJust Pegmatites--look those up. When beryllium levels are higher yes, they tend to get concentrated even more by the tendency to form crystalline structures in the magma. Pegmatite has a high water content, which allows the beryllium to concentrate.
@@michaeldeal4846 I hope so. Stellar nucleosynthesis and f- and s-process neutron loading are the ways these happen, but even outside of "stellar" processes, like Earth's atmosphere, this still can happen. Sure, the oxygen and nitrogen was formed by star-stuff, and the cosmic ray by more star-stuff...but this, and then the processes that concentrate it into usable ores, are planetary.
I wish my wife would let me talk science at her for 20 minutes.
She would if you were Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp.
@@_John_Pok Johnny Pped
I wish my wife existed.
Tell her is about
I wish I had a wife.
Love seeing the both of you working together keep it up. Hello from Newcastle Australia
Hello from the central coast!
BNE 🇦🇺
Cheers from Melbourne
Hello from another New South Welsh Novocastrian!
Hemlo from NSW 🇦🇺
Worth adding that stuff like Technetium is actually made in supernovae, but its half life is so short it never makes it to Earth. So while we never see it in nature, and thus all of it we've ever had is made in a lab, it is a thing nature makes.
Thanks! I was waiting for them to mention that element. 😅
These include the likes of Astatine and Francium which have no stable or long half life isotopes.
great news! You are the first to tell me how heavy elements were really formed! Thanx.
Glad to help!
+1 !! Exactly!
1:43 to be precise, temperature were high enough to produce heavier elements, but it dropped to colder temeperature in orders of seconds therefore only hydrogen, helium, litium and their isotopes could be created (maybe some boron, but I don't quite remember). Another reason is because there is actually a barrier in the fusion at beryllium-8 (and helium-5 btw) which is unstable (t~=10^(-8) s). Only in the stellar cores this element can be produced, and used for fusion, because cores are hot and stable for a long period of time (millions of terrestrial years instead of a couple hundred of seconds)
sorry to be pedantic (again) but at 13:05 is a common misconception: the "r" originally meant "residuals" because there were some element that can't be explained with s-process (which again don't stand for slow, but I quite can't remember) that happened in the neutron spallations during supernovae
I appreciate the pedanticism. Please continue 👍
@@ScienceAsylum ahah thanks but that's all. The video is perfect as alwasys, I just wanted to add some little known facts that only "expert in the field" know (and they are barely mentioned during lessons...)
Every time the kilonova event of 2017 is mentioned, I stop to appreciate the sheer freaking coolness of it. Someone must have been having a moment of pure awe... "Remember that gravitational wave detection on August 17th? Well guess what, the gamma ray observatories caught it too, that one was actually visible, it was BRIGHT" Also still can't get past the image of two neutron stars colliding and bursting into massive amounts of GOLD
There's probably quite a lot of it on earth, or rather in earth. Most of those heavier elements would have sunk towards or into the core in the early stages of the planet. If we ever manage to get down that far, there's going to be a lot of broke commodity traders.
It may be that it's nearing 3am but now I want a cartoon of Mario punching a kilonova like a cosmic brick.
@@ohasis8331 I think mining of asteroid 16 Psyche will be an easier engineering feat.
Small correction at 8:05: New hydrogen atoms can be formed from the decay of free neutrons.
How common is it?
Those neutrons thrown out by nuetron stars, if they don't hit something, decay into hydrogen.
@@liam3284in something like 10 minutes or so, on average
Well yeah duhhh that's common sense (Jk)
There is also proton and double proton emission !
You guys have some very wholesome chemistry, but the thing that's stuck in my mind is that the Hydrogen in our bodies is as old as the universe. That's just so badass.
It is cool, but also a little bit misleading, as the protons in the hydrogen atoms have not all been in hydrogen atoms for the entire history of the universe. Some will have spent time in larger nuclei by fusion, then returned to hydrogen via fission.
Me: Oh, a Science Asylum video just dropped. Imma watch it as soon as I can. Then me: OMG it's a conversation with M, that means it is not good, it'll be absolutely fantastic. Truly those videos are all in your top 10.
They almost always perform better than my regular videos.
@@ScienceAsylum she works as a good audience intermediary i think for people who might sometimes struggle with what you say. shes really good at breaking stuff you say down into more easy to understand stuff for the layman i think. also youre just adorable together which helps!
I always like these conversation videos, a good change of pace.
The 'Wamp' sound when those atoms collide is so satisfying.
I’d buy it as a text tone
I want a 1 hour version of the womp
they use that same sound at the checkouts at Aldi.
I wouldn't mind seeing Em teaching nick something
"We're all made of stardust... with extra steps" Just doesn't sound as cool 😉
Yeah, nuance ruining everything again 😉
except for the hydrogen
@@ScienceAsylum ""We're all stardust," but that's not actually true" In the end we are, however we nuance it. Are these always this clickbaity?
I love the comparison with biology! That is my favourite way of learning!
I do have two pedantic issues with what you said in the video. 1. It wasn't just protons produced in the Big Bang, but also neutrons. I thought I read that most of the helium produced there was from those neutrons, rather than from the hydrogen to deuterium fusion channel. 2. My understanding is that most of the nitrogen in the universe comes from normal stellar nucleosynthesis in stars more massive than the sun through the CNO fusion cycle. I don't recall you covering it on this channel, so I suppose I can appreciate not mentioning it here. For anyone reading the comments and not familiar, most fusion energy in large stars comes from that CNO cycle. It starts with a carbon-12 nucleus in a star which captures 4 hydrogen atoms in succession, with enough time for radioactive decay to convert two of the protons into neutrons. When the last hydrogen is captured to form oxygen-16, it almost always immediately fissions into helium-4 and carbon-12, and the cycle starts again. While this does seem more complicated and involved than pure hydrogen fusion, it does end up being faster overall. As long is the star is big enough, as it takes a higher temperature to happen than pure hydrogen fusion.
1) yes, and it's actually a very important parameter for Big Bang nucleosynthetis and abundancies in the universe! 2) yes and no: nitrogen is produced during the carbon/oxygen burning in the core (and eventually in burning shell). During CNO cycle theoretically should be formed none as C, O and N (and in hotter star even flourine) are used as catalysts. However, since the reaction that involves (one of the isotopes of) nitrogen has the slowest rate of the chain, it accumulates waiting for the reaction therefore most of carbon and oxygen is "transformed" in nitrogen. Hope this helped :)
You might add: Within a nucleus, the beta decay process can change a proton to a neutron.
I like this format.
It's very popular. Makes me glad I tried it on a whim several years ago.
Blame Socrates. 😜
Science Asylum uploads - I click. Been a huge fan for years, thanks Nick
For me a retired 75-year-old electrical engineer, I found this to be an extremely interesting video especially the outcome of neutron stars merging causing the higher elements I am so astounded thank you so much for this presentation. Very best regards.
Glad you enjoyed it! That means a lot.
Excellent video, Nick, and thank you for clarifying the idea around binding energy. Also, I really like when you have Emily co-host your topics. Emily adds a lot of value in clarification, acting as a sounding board, and, in general, co-hosting the program. Well done as always!
Thanks for having Emily! Her questions and comments were very useful.
"We are all made of star stuff," was one of the strongest reasons that I ended up as fascinated with astronomy/cosmology as I am. The perfectly balanced, improbable, and terribly complex mechanism of the infinite universe coming together to form such a tiny, insignificant speck as say, Earth... it boggles the mind. Anyway, I like your approach to the topic. Definitely worth a subscribe...
This makes for a great video to show in a high school chemistry class toward the end of the school year. It answers the question that almost never crosses one's mind about how did these atoms come about. I find it fascinating. Thanks.
Werner Heisenberg was pulled over by a state trooper. The trooper asked him if he knew how fast he was going. Werner replied "no idea". The trooper look him dead in the eye and said 85. Werner in total disbelief responded, "Great! Now I'm lost."
This is the best physics joke I've ever read.
I dont get it.....sadly
@@hunterchristian8372Would you explain it for me? I dont get it.
Reminds me, back in the 80's, a highway cop once pulled over someone going like 130 mph in a Ferrari. As the officer approaches, the guy rolls down the window, and the officer asks "Hi, who do you think you are; Niki Lauda?", the guy says "uh, yes", and hands him his drivers license. Turned out it actually was Niki Lauda, the famous racecar driver. They have a long talk about racing, and ends up with the cop telling him to take it a bit slower, and letting him off with a warning.
Heisenbergs Uncertainty you can't know both momentum and location exactly, joke speed 85 no way to know exact location. Basic QM stuff little more to it than that but that's the punchline for the joke
Crazies Nick and Em have such chemistry on screen!
So not just stardust, but a whole melange of starstuff, having gone through various treatments
There is a word that I don't use enough. Melange. Going to try and slip it into conversation tomorrow and gloat about how smart I am. 😂
The spice must flow...
That was new, up till now I too thought everything came from stars. Thx for enlighten me!
Happy to enlighten!
Excellent presentation - i was in the group that believed every element up to Fe were made by stellar nuclear fusion (with H and He being forged at the big bang). Elements heavier than Fe up to U were made in supernova events. Always good to learn new things and revise my thinking. Cheers
Glad I could add a little nuance into your life 🤓
Until the recent (!) and elegant explanation of neutrons decaying into protons and thus creating new elements, everybody has been a victim of the fairy tale that all heavy elements had been created in supernova events. Even with billions of years in between, I can't imagine that collisions of neutron stars (not to mention black holes!) are little more than improbable, not in an expanding universe.
I absolutely love this double act! Cheers for the upload!
It is good to have two people explaining, because some questions and explanations would not come up otherwise. Thank you for this video.
Yeah, that seems to be what many people are saying. When I make videos by myself, I don't always realize what details are important.
Your wife is great cohost. Excellent content .
Agreed the way she asks the questions a layman like myself with basic knowledge of all this stuff would ask if i was at a lecture in my college days.
"I feel so old all of a sudden." You and me both... Remember back at the big bang, when our hydrogen atoms were first created though? Gods, I was strong back then.
😆
Your video is the first video that I have seen that has incorporated this new concept of neutron star element creation. Good work.
great explanation and good dialog style video. Keep them coming :)
Many thanks for such an informative video!!! Keep up the good work!!!
I love these episodes with your wife! She brings a lot of knowledge to your explanations!
Hey Nick, Ive been watching your vids for years, so I feel I've long overdue to say your vids with Em are an absolute treat, so shoutout to both of you! ❤
Glad you like them! We enjoy making them, so it's nice that they're appreciated.
Hey Nick. I absolutely LOVE your physics content. I especially like when you're explaining to M, who then turns around and gives a very thoughtful and smart non-Physics standpoint. Keep it up.
Always difficult finding qualified assistant death ray operators because I can't offer insurance.
"We're gonna need another Timmy!!"
Really nice video. As usual, a nit to pick. Binding energy isn't like activation energy. Binding energy is the energy liberated after the reaction is done. Lithium, beryllium, and boron have lower binding energy than helium, so when you get enough energy to make them you also have enough energy to break them apart into helium et al.
I am so glad I found this channel! This is my favorite topic to learn about!
This is a great video. I knew the basic idea that the heavier elements were made in stars and supernova but this has expanded my knowledge which is always a good thing! Thank you.
I went and did the math: I am 40% around since literally the big bang. This revelation has thrown my personal place in the universe off a bit. Thank you so much. I love how you made the whole video👍🏽
Fascinating and very enjoyable. A Gold Star to you both (one each, that is!) .
I.ve been a subscriber for a number of years now and find your presentation informative and enjoyable. Bear in mind that I've been teaching physics and mathematics for the last 35 years and think that you're doing a great job imparting knowledge. Keep up the good work.👍👏
Amazing video! Very comprehensive information. I was just wondering about the subject. Thank you!
Man, I LOVE your videos. Thank you!
Thanks for watching! 🤓
7:50 Most building blocks of life on Earth are made by nuclear fusion (except for hydrogen nuclei) but not all of them are made by stellar nucleosynthesis since nitrogen, potassium, chlorine, selenium, copper, zinc, manganese and cobalt nuclei are made by supernova nucleosynthesis, molybdenum nuclei are made by neutron capture in stars and neutron-star mergers, and iodine nuclei are made by neutron-star mergers.
what an entertaining and informative format, thank you, great show!
I must admit that I learned something new. Really cool that Nick Lucid is giving us a heads-up with regards to recent research. Also Em Lucid is lovely and much better than any clones of Nick. You both rock! Best wishes, Erik.
Thank you for educating us. I hope my daughters have my same appetite for science and truth.
as always very teaching video in a fun way to watch but also very accurate
This video was so enlightening!! I am so grateful that you've explained the nuance of this process, I totally thought all elements were made inside stars as I constantly hear quotes from Carl Sagan or Neil DeGrasse Tyson saying "we're star dust". This just adds a whole extra layer of appreciation. I love it, also love Awkward M here!!! love u guys! ❤
Love seeing 2 brilliant people talking through subjects I always wondered about with such crazy grace.❤
This was really interesting and educational. The next time I'm in a conversation with somebody, and they said, "Did you know all the elements around us except hydrogen and helium were made in stars?" I'm going to say, "Well, actually. . ." BTW, I love listening you and your wife talk.
An electron gets pulled over by a cop. The cop asks the electron, "Do you know how fast you were going?" The electron says, "No..." The cop says, "10,000,000 miles per hour." The electron says, "Dammit man! Now I have no idea where I am!"
this is an unfortunate misrepresentation of the HEP: the expectation value is totally irrelevant, all that matter is the variance,
Great video. You do a wonderful job at explaining things in a matter where most people can understand. 👍
I love your videos about cosmology and astrophysics, and the formation of elements is one of my favourite topics. I'm currently enrolled on a project to characterize a silicon detector at college. There, they collide heavy ions such as calcium nuclei, for example, and some of the byproducts are lithium and beryllium! Now I understand why this area of research is related to the formation of elements in our universe!
Your wife is so pleasant. Great topic and endlessly fascinating.
I’ve watched and enjoyed your videos for years, but I enjoyed this change of pace with a more conversational style. Keep up the excellent work on your channel!
(17:30) _ “Neutrons saving the day!“_ “Making _the day...“_ She stole your clever line! Thank you for this format of physics lectures; they make my brain hurt less.
Just discovered this channel. I love the format -- with an expert in this field interacting with a very smart and insightful person from another field of science! Very illuminating.
Star dust, big bang dust, neutron merger dust
What an excellent episode. Thank you!
In the begining Yehovah Elohim created the heavens and the Earth.
Wow, it's so nice to see you two talk. You have a nice chemistry.
I've listened to this episode several times. I thank you for sharing your knowledge. Much love ❤
Congrats on having 666 subscribers!
Thanks!
Love this channel! ❤🎉😊
Glad you enjoy it! 🤓
I also bought the book! 😊
Wait there's a book!!?
@@declanquigg6343 Yes! Advanced physics written by Lucid himself. Check his web site. This is 😃
@@declanquigg6343 Advanced Theoretical Physics (Paperback): www.lulu.com/shop/nick-lucid/advanced-theoretical-physics-a-historical-perspective/paperback/product-24250687.html Advanced Theoretical Physics (eBook): gumroad.com/l/ubSc
Great vid as always !
I really liked how you brought up in your last video that big stars don't make iron, they make nickel-56. That gets glossed over A LOT.
11:00 So, beryllium, lithium and boron are nuclear shrapnel, kind of?
Yeah, that's a perfect analogy 👍
You did a great job with your little duo there ... made it very interesting and easier to follow. Well done.
Wow, wow! The interaction between you two is fantastic.
Thank you! 🤓 We feel pretty great about it too.
God, I love this channel.
Some radioactive processes generate lone neutrons, which decay into protons, which might pick up an electron to become neutral hydrogen, right? In that case, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that among the gazillions of hydrogens in your body, at least one of them might be a former neutron rather than having been hydrogen since the big bang?
but even those neutrons were once hydrogen.
I learnt a lot from this really engaging and smart video. It's a great format.
Fun video, thanks for making it and for calling it a Neutron Remnant, makes it oddly easier to understand
Good work!
Thanks!
@@ScienceAsylum 💯
Awesome to have a partner interested in the same work. Congrats
I feel pretty great about it 😃
@@ScienceAsylum I love your videos with her. The conversation flows very nicely and the questions we would like to ask are often her questions too. It makes things easier to understand. Top notch content, man
This is the most interesting podcast'esk format I have encountered yet.
How enlightening you are team, with a little cherry on top. KZhead has become a great gift to the humus of our little planet. Thank you!
Carl lied to us????
Eh. Like most popular science celebrities, he oversimplified the truth 🤷♂️
@ScienceAsylum but the accusation implied was that we were led to believe something on false pretenses and have only now understood the misguided beliefs held. He lied.
I think the quote was "we are made of star stuff" which (as an aspiring pedant) is distinct from "we are all made exclusively from star stuff". A cookie can be made from flour and sugar yet still contain chocolate chips. The English language is replete with ambiguity. I'd argue his statement is still accurate...insofar as "star stuff" is a thing.
Not lied just left out steps. I don't think this video really condtradicts the statement that we are made of stardust despite the title. Stardust - or at least star remnant dust ;) - is required input to those other processes, so all that stuff that isn't produced in stellar fusion is still made of stardust. Gotta admit that "We are made of star-stuff" is more quotable than "We are made of star-stuff and some other stuff that is also made of star-stuff" though. PS: I was using a non-technical understanding of the term stardust. Just tried to look up the technical definition but after 20 minutes reading I lack the context to understand it. From now on I'll just say star stuff instead. 😆
8:00 Is it strictly true that _all_ of the hydrogen in your body has been around since the Big Bang? Do individual protons never get ejected during any natural processes? I guess I've never heard of it happening. Alpha radiation are helium nuclei. Fission can toss lone neutrons. Electrons are comparatively easy to knock loose. But I've never heard of a lone proton aside from the OG stuff.
Indeed. Beta radiation from some fusion or fission is neutrons and those decay into proton+eletron, so a few are remade into hydrogen that way.
A free neutron spontaneously decays to a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino, with a mean lifetime of about 15 minutes. -- wikipedia on neutron
Love you guys! Great video wonderful explanations
You guys are really sweet together. Genuine passion, thanks for the info.
“Weird is usually interesting.” 😂 That seems like a nerd thing to say! 😂😂 However, I am also a nerd, so I agree. 😂😂😂
😂
Whilst a good video I am a little frustrated at the absolutes used here. "These particles do NOT come from stars" is very much at odds with both what I was taught and my books on the subject. Alpha particle catalysed chains are very much a part of small star fusion and will produce many of the elements contrary to the video's suggestion. A wide range of atoms excluded will be produced in stars in fact. It seems more proper to point out a low proportion of that element comes from stars rather than to suggest it simply doesn't. Nuclear Physics is more a game of percentages than definite firm products. Another example would be the suggestion that all hydrogen atoms come from the big bang. Neutrons decay to protons all of the time, they aren't purely from the big bang. I understand the desire to stress that star fusion has very little to do with hydrogen production, but it just feels a little weird to say it in such an extremely inaccurate way. I checked Nuclear and Particle Physics, W.S.C Wells before making the comment but I'm sure most reputable scientific literature would agree. Specifically the chapter on Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics near the end if anyone needs a more in depth read at the undergrad level.
Get newer books. 😜
Thank you for saying this the exclusion of the alpha chain ladder and the brief footnote mention of the dominant s process both were incredibly frustrating as these process while they are less likely outcomes occur in most kinds of stars of sufficient mass to reach triple alpha fusion which have much higher abundances compared to more massive stars and last far longer which means the combined results of both processes dominate the production of many of these elements by large percentages. We only briefly covered these topics in my stellar astrophysics class but even there we acknowledge the role these processes had on the formation of elements. In fact if we consider stars other than the theorized population III stars these two processes together play a huge deciding role in the evolution and fate of massive stars with the catalytic generation and destruction of Nitrogen as part of the CNO cycle forming the dominant mode of main sequence fusion.
There's always more nuance. I have to draw the line somewhere to fit the information I'm presenting into a digestable chunk. I like how you worded it here: "Nuclear Physics is more a game of percentages than definite firm products." Those are words to live by in nuclear physics 👍
@@ScienceAsylum I understand I probably would have barely mentioned the alpha ladder beyond saying it exists and contributes significantly for several elements its the s process which I feel needed more attention as it appears to be a major point of confusion as the occurrence in lower mass stars means there are far more sources which actually start to dominate the story for some evidence.
I love when I actually learn something from a video and this was all new to me. Awesome!
Thanks for moving out from your older video format to those more in depth approaches. If you are like me and watch science content it gets a point that everyone wants to talk about basic principles, and end up being boring. By bringing new research you are making those things more accessible to science enthusiasts.
A question for Emily: does a radioactive cat have 18 half-lives? Asking for a friend... with a cat... in a box...
hi
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Em is a hoot. Very entertaining video, folks. Thanks.
I'm shocked I haven't heard this before! Great video!
What If a second Mercury replaced Venus and another Earth replaced Mars
Worry when it gets to Uranus