![]() It’s no match for the 1,185-letter, carbon-based word that appears on page 33 there, but it’s pretty good. ![]() “p45”) from the discussion of the longest word in the English language. Readers of my first book, The Disappearing Spoon (a romp through the periodic table) might recognize this disease (a.k.a. Helens blew, students in colleges in eastern Washington dropped out by the thousands, fearing that if they stayed through finals they would catch something called pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a lung disease that results from inhaling fine silicon particles. It does, on atomic scales.īefore you go telling people this at parties, though, remember that perpetual motion machines cannot exist, because you can’t harness this perpetual atomic motion to do work. ![]() So technically, it’s wrong to say that perpetual motion doesn’t exist. They vibrate in place or, if bonded to other atoms, hinge and twist and pivot back and forth. ![]() But even in solids at extremely low temperatures, hundreds of degree below zero, atoms never quite sit still. ![]() That’s far faster than the molecules in liquids or solids move. Chapter One Interlude 1A Chapter Two Interlude 2A Chapter Three Chapter Four Interlude 4A Chapter Five Interlude 5A Chapter Six Interlude 6A Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Interlude 8A Chapter NineĪs noted, an average molecule of air at 72☏ zips around at roughly a thousand miles per hour. ![]()
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