Paul+Rishel

Nuclear Reborn

I read the article about the revival of the nuclear industry, the only currently viable alternative to traditional coal-fueled generation. With climate change and global warming becoming more of an attentive issue it’s relieving to know that nuclear power does not produce any of the traditional air emissions. I was curious as to why nuclear power has not been a popular and generally accepted form of energy. I learned that incidents such as 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl as well as improvements in energy efficiency had stunted the growth of the early nuclear movement as well as cause current controversy. Many agree that nuclear energy is expensive as well as harbor threats to security as well as of radioactive waste. Over all, this nuclear rebirth is credited to the growing concern for global warming which is apparently more of a problem than threats to national security, or our national budget. Either way I am a huge supporter of nuclear energy and am pleased to see it making a comeback.

Einstein

I was initially impressed with the wide variety of photoelectric applications, I would have thought shining lights on a metal surface completely irrelevant. It was interesting to learn about threshold frequency that must be exceeded for the reaction to take effect. Different frequencies have different energies, the high the frequency the high the energy, this being a fact recently discovered in our AP Chemistry class. I was further intrigued by the theory of relativity, that time is relative to your frame of reference. This makes you suggest the possibility of time travel and other bizarre science fiction phenomenon.

Periodic Table

To be perfectly candid, I was unaware that there were other methods of representing the elements, however this doesn’t surprise me. It seems there will always be an individual trying to reinvent the wheel. I’d like to think that I’m speaking free of bias but the alternative orientations of elements, although attractive at first sight, seem largely impractical and unnecessary. I feel that the conventional periodic table does a reasonable job of organizing the elements into an easily comprehensive structure. Not to mention that changing the currently accepted table would throw a wrench in the works of AP Chemistry courses the world over.