The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [43]
Wet the twig (from the ring to the mouthpiece) with water, tap it gently with your knife to loosen the bark, and then carefully twist and pull the bark off. Try not to rip, tear, or break the bark, because you’ll need to put it back on the twig. Dunk it in water to keep it moist until you need it again.
Go back to the notch you made on the top side of the twig, make it deeper, and cut it some more so that it extends down the length of the twig towards the end that still has bark on. The length and depth of this notch is what determines the pitch of your whistle. Carve off just a sliver of wood from the upper surface of the mouthpiece to make it totally flat.
Dip the bark-less end of your twig into a glass of water and slip the bark back on.
Now all you have to do is blow! It may take a few tries or alterations to get it right, but keep at it and you’ll have your willow whistle blowing.
A dried-out willow whistle can be revived with a thorough soaking in water, but you might want to keep it wrapped in a damp towel so that it doesn’t dry completely.
Periodic Table of the Elements
THE MYSTERIOUS Periodic Table of the Elements holds up to 118 squares with numbers and abbreviations that are, really, the secret code to how the universe works. In these squares rests the true story of how elements combine to create chemical reactions and electricity and the tantalizing mechanisms of life itself.
A scientist named Dimitri Mendeleev of Siberia published The Periodic Table of the Elements in 1869 (beating another European scientist to fame by just a few months). Mendeleev listed all the elements that scientists knew at that time—63, but he had figured out the pattern of those elements, which had gaps, and predicted there were actually 92.
Mendeleev was correct in his prediction of elements in the gaps. And we now know, in fact, that there are 111 natural elements, along with seven (slightly controversial) elements made in the laboratory. Our chart shows 109 of them.
Some elements—like silver, gold, tin, sulfur, copper, and arsenic—were known in classical antiquity, and native peoples of the Americas knew about platinum. Others were discovered during Europe’s Age of Science, or more recently. Six elements are the core of life as we know it: phosphorous and sulfur (the main components of DNA), carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Women scientists have discovered several elements:
Element Abbreviation/Atomic Number Discovered By Date
Polonium Po/84 Marie Sklodowska Curie 1898
Radium Ra/88 Marie Sklodowska Curie with her husband Pierre Curie 1898
Rhenium Re/75 Ida Tacke-Noddack with her colleagues Walter Noddack and Otto Carl Berg 1925
Francium Fr/87 Marguerite Catherine Perey 1939
WHAT IS AN ELEMENT?
Elements are basic pieces of matter, composed of a single unique kind of atom. There is nothing that’s not made of elements.
WHAT IS AN ATOM?
An atom is the basic structure of everything. A group of atoms is called a molecule, and molecules form everything we know, sense, live in, and touch.
WHAT IS IN AN ATOM?
Protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, and gluons, none of which are visible to our eyes, unfortunately. Protons are in the atom’s nucleus and carry a positive charge. Each element has a unique number of protons. In fact, the protons determine the order of the elements in the chart. Os, or Osmium, is not the random 76th element, it has 76 protons—hence its place on the chart. The number of protons in an atom never changes. Hydrogen, H, always has 1 proton. Aluminum, Al, always has 13. The proton number distinguishes one element from the others and accounts for each element’s character and behavior. Neutrons also are in the nucleus, and carry a neutral charge. Both protons and neutrons break down into quarks, and quarks are held together by gluons.
Electrons have a negative electrical charge and they orbit around the nucleus. The sharing of electrons between atoms creates bonds. In metals, the movement of electrons