Let’s make TeO2 glass with bright fluorescence

Music in this video is by the artist Void: agardenofsound.bandcamp.com/album/the-hitchhikers-…

"we're at the end of May" -- Tom, in August

Everyone talks about photons but forgets about darkness; that is carried by subatomic wave-like particles called photoffs.

"Photons are real" That is a dangerous rabbit hole....

>goes to opensauce >comes back >everything's yellow you can't even make this shit up sometimes

It’s absolutely hilarious that you managed to find discover a beautiful, white powder that turns yellow when lonely.

"once again that's a job for the microwave furnace" Chemistry at its finest.

When I think of Tellurium, I think of that hilarious story about the Australian mining town (Kalgoorlie) who accidentally built their town out of gold telluride ore. They thought it was fool’s gold.

I wonder if the reason tellurium's chemistry is so weird is that it has 8 stable isotopes, with a 10 neutron difference between the lightest and heaviest. Might mess with the orbitals and stuff? I dunno.

I love this PHD guy's commitment to standing directly in front of the GL in GLASS to spell out ASS.

The chemist sitting in the corner of the rave is often more responsible for the overall vibe than the DJ.

"Are Phonons Real?" - the greatest thread in the history of YouTube comments, locked by Tom after 12,239 pages of heated debate.

Hey I can explain why the torch strobes! Basically all flashlights and similar objects use the same exact off the shelf control chip to do shit like "make it so you can have a button that turns the thing on and off" At some point the standard chip became one that does that strobing thing and it is in fucking everything for some reason. Some reason being they're very plug and play, consistent, functional, boring shit like that. Basically it means that instead of thinking about control circuits the makers of that torch simply bought an existing design.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the longevity of rave? I'm 60 in a couple of months and me and my mates were mad for the rave back in the day. Although I needed to take a portable DVD player with me when I went to the rave, so I could watch my chemistry videos. Rave is also the reason I can't remember anything that happened after 1988, well not so much rave as the drugs really.

I worked in a copper refinery. The Se&Te reported to a byproduct of the electrolytic cells called slimes. Slimes contained all the precious metals, Se/Te and Cu. The slimes were pyro processed (NaNO3& NaCO3 + hell fire) and separated into dore' silver (contained all the Ag/Au and Pt group), slag and a red mud we recovered from the off gases. The red mud was said to contain the Te. The Se&Te went off to a department called Se/Te and the Se/Te were refined. Mostly we made product forms that were easy to use in steel alloy production and some super high purity forms for niche markets. A massive amount was processed into medium grade crap that went into a warehouse in case an application arose "someday" Mostly the warehouse helped the company avoid disposal cost of this less-than-worthless material. People did get exposed, not all exposed people got stinky. Those that did acquire the stank were never cured. My job took me all over the plant. I hated Se/Te, mostly I hated the SO2 used to process the stuff. Congrats on the result.

"How hard can that be" is a phrase I always end up regretting.

One of my favorite things about back yard chemistry videos is how often people incidentally make the most hazardous rocket oxidizer in common use, that most career rocket people have never seen in person.

"How often do you think about tellurium" - Well, I had a job working with bismuth telluride thermo electric coolers, so often enough.

Another day in the life of the most sane Australian.

"Barely ever rains here" *Rain almost sabotages every step of the project*