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user430580
user430580
01:52
I got a case full of cesium ampules and BROKE them
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↑ A video about cesium metal and its reactions with various things ↑
user430580
user430580
02:10
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→ 12 messages moved to ­Trash
This shiny mineral is antimony in its native form. Antimony is a metalloid, it's shiny like metals, but is brittle and doesn't conduct electricity very well.
 
8 hours later…
user430580
user430580
10:41
Ping
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Pong
Got 110 wpm, 99% accuracy.
user430580
user430580
11:13
Wow that's nice! What website do you use to measure it?
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Petəíŕd the Wizard
@user430580 monkeytype.com
user430580
user430580
11:33
Better than the site I know (humanbenchmark.com/tests/typing), thanks!
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Petəíŕd the Wizard
:)
Amit
Amit
12:01
i got 96wpm
94.1% accuracy
oh actually it says "percentile", not sure what it means
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Petəíŕd the Wizard
12:14
@Amit says where?
Amit
Amit
user image
It seems to be a comparison to all users
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Petəíŕd the Wizard
ah, you mean in humanbenchmark?
Amit
Amit
yea
i didn't see any measure of accuracy, maybe i missed it
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Petəíŕd the Wizard
Weird.
I've made a profile on Monkeytype: monkeytype.com/profile/Peter-developer
 
5 hours later…
PM 2Ring
PM 2Ring
17:23
@user430580 There's mixed info about the malleability of gallium. I'd like to see an authoritative reference. I suspect that it's more malleable near its melting point. And it's possible that it becomes less malleable as you keep hammering it.
Copper is like that. If you heat it up and cool it slowly it becomes quite soft. But as you hammer it, it gradually becomes harder. This is known as work-hardening.
Work hardening
Work hardening, also known as strain hardening, is the process by which a material's load-bearing capacity (strength) increases during plastic (permanent) deformation. This characteristic is what sets ductile materials apart from brittle materials. Work hardening may be desirable, undesirable, or inconsequential, depending on the application. This strengthening occurs because of dislocation movements and dislocation generation within the crystal structure of the material. Many non-brittle metals with a reasonably high melting point as well as several polymers can be strengthened in this fashion...
Another metal that gets denser when you melt it is plutonium. Plutonium has several allotropes. Its least dense allotrope is relatively easy to work, but the denser allotropes aren't easy to machine.
During the Manhattan Project, it was discovered that alloying it with gallium makes it a lot easier to machine. Brittle plutonium is scary, because it makes more plutonium dust when you're trying to machine it. And as you can imagine, you really don't want ultrafine plutonium dust particles floating around...
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium%E2%80%93gallium_alloy
An additional complication is that because it's radioactive it damages its own crystal structure. Of course, you get a defect at the site of each decayed atom, but the emitted particles also stress the surrounding crystal structure. They're mostly alpha particles, which become helium atoms when they pick up a couple of electrons. And that gas "wants" to diffuse out of the crystal lattice.
OakBot
OakBot
18:37
Ah, plutonium, that tricky fella. The whole radioactive disco inside it, slowly messing up its own innards—isn't nature just wild? It’s like the Hulk but trapped in metal form. Goodness, when you're tinkering with stuff like that—and add some gallium into the mix—your margin for error better be tighter than my ol' tweed vest. Yep, wearing safety gloves isn't just a suggestion if you're working with legends like these.
user430580
user430580
19:11
@Amit Hello, 94.12 percentile means that you are faster than 94.12% of population. Or, in other words, your are in the top 5.88% of all who took the test
@Amit Human benchmark doesn't show accuracy =] I tested it and it appears that the words where you made mistakes are not count fully, I assume it's like if your speed is 90 wpm, but you only correctly type half of characters, then it shows 45 wpm
Human benchmark has more difficult test in my opinion compared to monkeytype, as monkeytype is all lowercase words, while humanbenchmark requires you to type capitals, apostrophes, periods, commas, etc.
@PetəíŕdtheWizard Oooh okay so your name is Peter, wow that was so obvious all the time but I would never have guessed :P
@PM2Ring My source for that was Wikipedia under "Brittle elemental metal"
> While nearly all elemental metals are malleable or ductile, a few—beryllium, chromium, manganese, gallium, and bismuth—are brittle
However, Wikipedia has lots of inconsistencies and errors, for example the list above doesn't mention iridium, osmium, nor tungsten, but if you visit their respective Wikipedia pages then you will see that they are all described as brittle. Who should I believe, I don't know :P
I think you might be correct on that it could depend on temperature, here is a video of Cody's Lab where he shows than frozen mercury bar gets brittle near its melting point, and he mentions that lead does that, too
Bending Solid Mercury: It Cries!
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Here is video of Cody's Lab where he shows how brittle gallium is, it fractures "like glass or metallic obsidian"
Breaking Gallium
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But if you bend it slowly, it deforms like a metal
If those shiny pieces of shattered gallium aren't beautiful, then I don't know what is
Plutonium is really interesting element, despite being a metal it doesn't conduct heat nor electricity that well compared to other metals. And about damaging its own crystal structure because of radioactivity, I know that polonium-210 does that, too, which makes it volatile even at room temperature.
PM 2Ring
PM 2Ring
19:42
@user430580 Interesting! It would be nice to know the room temperature in his lab.
Tin also "cries" when you bend it. It's hard to notice with tin foil, but quite apparent with pieces thicker than 1 mm or so.
Polonium is scary. It makes plutonium seem almost friendly. :)
Of course, large chunks of plutonium near the critical mass are very scary. Especially if accidentally dropped onto a neutron reflector...
Not all Pu isotopes are fissile. And even in those that are fissile, the probability of spontaneous fission (SF) is much smaller than the probability of alpha emission. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_plutonium
My favourite Pu isotope is Pu-238, which is used in radiothermal generators. Here's a pellet of its oxide, glowing from its own heat produced by alpha decay.
Plutonium-238
Plutonium-238 (238Pu or Pu-238) is a radioactive isotope of plutonium that has a half-life of 87.7 years. Plutonium-238 is a very powerful alpha emitter; as alpha particles are easily blocked, this makes the plutonium-238 isotope suitable for usage in radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) and radioisotope heater units. The density of plutonium-238 at room temperature is about 19.8 g/cc. The material will generate about 0.57 watts per gram of 238Pu. The bare sphere critical mass of metallic plutonium-238 is not precisely known, but its calculated range is between 9.04 and 10.07 kilograms...

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