NOVA:Hunting the Elements 1. There are ________ unique substances (elements) arranged on an amazing chart that reveals their hidden secrets to anyone who knows how to read it.: 118 2. All the gold ever mined would fit into a single cube about _______ feet on a side.: 60 3. Three-quarters of the elements are ________________.: metals 4. How an atom reacts chemically depends on how willing it is to share _________________ with others.: electrons 5. How much would a 60 pound block of gold be worth in dollars? $_________________________: 1 and a 1/2 million dollars 6. List two things copper is used for: a. b.: a) wire b) plumbing 7. When copper is combined with another element, __________, it makes bronze, the first manmade metal alloy.: tin 8. The number of ________________ determines what kind of element the atom is.: protons 9. The number of protons is called the atomic ________________ and it's the fundamental organizing principle of every table of the elements.: number 10. Metals are shiny, malleable materials that conduct ____________________________.: electricity 11. Most people think of _________________ as white and chalky, but it's actually a silver, shiny metal.: calcium 12. . Fiesta ware bowls, like this one from the 1930s, gets its orange color from _________________ , and it's actually dangerously radioactive.: uranium 13. The table organizes the elements by atomic number, that is, the number of protons in each atom, yet the table's creator - a 19th -centruy Russian chemistry professor, named Dmitri ___________________, knew nothing about protons or atomic numbers.: mendeleev 14. The group that fits neatly onto the end of the table, the _____________ __________, are unwilling to mix with the other elements, to react with them.: noble gasses 15. Protons may determine the identity of an element, but _________________ rule its reactivity.: electrons 1/4 16. An atom with _______ electrons in its outer shell makes one happy, satisfied atom.: 8 17. The column just before the stable noble gases are called the _________________. They have an outer shell that needs just one more electron to be full.: halogens 18. The ______________ metals are the first column. Each of them has full shells, plus one extra electron sitting in a new, outer shell: alkali 19. The ion chromatograph looks for positively or negatively charged molecules, called __________, in the residue, fragments of the original chemical explosive.: cation exchange 20. . Every time atoms form a new bond, the reaction releases _______________.: energy 21. How do you speed up a fire to create an explosion? You regulate the amount of ________________ and how closely it's packed together with other elements.: oxygen 22. The oxygen that powers all those explosions makes up ______% of our atmosphere. It's the most abundant element in the earth's crust.: 21% 23. What six elements make life possible?: C,H,N,O,P,S 24. List two ways that carbon is found in its pure form:: graphite, graphene 25. Your body composition is about _______% carbon and _______% nitrogen.: 18% and 3% 26. . Hydrogen and oxygen can actually be separated from water using a little bit of ___________________.: electricity 27. . In a person's body, there's _______% oxygen.: 65% 28. . Phosphorus is actually involved in something really important called _________, which is the molecule that all cells use for energy.: ATP 29. Phosphorus makes up about _______% of the human body. It was the first element isolated from a living creature.: 1% 30. . Altogether just those six CHNOPS elements make up 97% of the weight of his body, but what about the other 3%? Those are what's called the _________________ elements.: T,R,A,C,E 31. . _____________ is important for energy metabolism.: Magnesium 32. ____________________ is an important part of nervous system function.: Sodium 2/4 33. . In total, the human body uses more than _______ elements in ways and quantities that are unique to us.: 25 34. As the planet cooled, another ancient microorganism evolved and changed everything. They are called cyanobacteria, but we know them as _____________________________. They found a way to get their energy from light and water, releasing oxygen as a byproduct, just like modern plants do.: Blue-Green Algae 35. Around 90% of all the atoms in the universe are ________________, and they were all made by the Big Bang, more than 13 billion years ago.: Hydrogen 36. Stars like our own sun are constantly turning hydrogen atoms into element number two: helium. It's a process called ________________.: Fusion 37. By the time it's fusing iron, a star is in its death throes. It begins to collapse, and if it's massive enough, that collapse leads to a powerful explosion called a ______________________.: Supernova 38. This element, with 14 protons and 14 electrons, is the 2nd most abundant element in the earth's rocky crust and is a member of one of the smallest neighborhoods on the table: the semiconductors. __________________________: Silicon 39. Glass all starts with ordinary ___________, which is made of a combination of silicon and oxygen.: Sand 40. Glassmakers have learned how to precisely place minute amounts of ___________ atoms like sodium, potassium, and aluminum among the silicon atoms. The result is hard, yet flexible and scratchresistant.: Metal 41. Switches made out of semiconductors made computers possible, but lately when it comes to high tech, there's a new family on the block, the __________ _____________, 15 elements located near the bottom of the table.: Rare Earths 42. List three uses of the rare earth metal neodymium.: Magnets, Cars, Earbuds 43. Where do the majority (98%) of rare earth minerals come from in the world?: China 3/4 44. . ___________ makes magnets, but adding neodymium makes magnets on steroids.: Iron 45. They accidently discovered that the strong neodymium magnets (and other rare earth elements) can actually repel _____________.: Sharks 46. Scientists now know that most elements come in more than one version. The different versions are called _____________________. The different between them is the number of neutrons in the nucleus.: Isotopes 47. To determine how long ago droughts occurred, Scott is using __________________ to date the trees because it is unstable and the atoms begin to deteriorate over time in a process called radioactive decay.: Carbon 14 48. . Carbon-14 can be sued to date samples up to __________________ years old.: 500 49. . At the bottom of the periodic table, beginning with number 84, polonium, all of the elements and their isotopes are ______________________.: Radioactive 50. Before the nuclear age, uranium was thought to be the end of the periodic table, but in the last 70 years, scientists have left nature behind and created _______ new elements.: 26 4/4