John Cuthber

Was there any part of that which you thought I didn't already know? Yes and no. While we usually consider CaO to be "ionic", if you look at the electron distribution (by Xray diffraction) you see that, on average, not all of the 2 electrons are on the oxygen. If you choose an easier ion to oxidise- for example iodide and a metal that's harder to oxidise (or easier to reduce) like lead or silver you get an "ionic" solid, but (unlike the iodide, or silver, ions) it's yellow. That's because the energy from a blue photon is high enough to kick an electron from the anion back onto the cation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-transfer_band The TiO2 which is used as a pigment in most white paint is similar- the electron can be moved from the oxide ion back to the titanium ion, but only by light in the extreme blue end of the spectrum, and that's not normally noticeable.

OK. In summary; saying that the world (as we know it) ends in 10 years* is believed by some Democrats (Though, apparently not the Party leader), but that isn't Dem policy. And saying that science is wrong/ bad is a thing** some Republicans (Including the Party leader) believe and it is Rep policy. * a statement that may well be true ** a statement that is not true Do you see the difference? That's essentially why Nature supported one party, rather than the other.

So, your point was that the cliffs are mainly made from a highly soluble thing that doesn't dissolve.

Really? I have seen people make the prediction that, if we do not change things, "the world as we know it" will end in 2031. That's not without a scientific basis, though the experimental uncertainty is large. Assuming you didn't make up your claim and there really is "plenty of evidence of Democrats claiming the world will end in 12 (10 now?) years." then lets see it. And, more importantly, if you can find them, can you show that (1) it's anti science and (2) it's Democrat policy to say so. Whereas the GOP is on record for trying to extinguish critical thinking skills in schools and that plainly is an anti science policy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html So, if a bunch of people vote for a party that seeks to cut science budgets, opposes the teaching of thinking and is led by a man who talks about HCQ as a panacea, but also suggests injecting bleach, why shouldn't I say they seem to be anti-science? Because if you didn't agree with The One, you got sacked.

OK let's start with the fact that a link to a video of a man saying something is not "anecdotal". Are you aware that Trump is also a republican? So there's at least two. But that's hardly the point. I really don't need to go through the record of every Registered Republican and find specific evidence for each individual. It is clear that many of the Trump voters must be similarly anti-science or they wouldn't support the man who suggested injecting bleach and said that the pandemic would vanish when Spring arrived. Are you seeking to defend his position?

The White Cliffs of Dover indicate that the solubility isn't just down to the Ca++ ion. The Ca++ ions in water are surrounded by a bunch of water molecules which are more or less firmly attached.

Yes, it would be cheap, simple, low tech and accessible. But it would not work. The potassium oxide vapourises at temperatures high enough for potassium carbonate to decompose. On the other hand, you can use a simple charcoal fire furnace to make quicklime. And then you can add water to make the calcium hydroxide needed for causticisation. The by-product is calcium carbonate and you can reuse that by putting it in the furnace again. Much as I would like to claim credit for this rather clever system, it isn't my invention. The process was used for centuries. No Arguably, it should be replaced with "Slaked lime". Quicklime is calcium oxide and the material used to make caustic in solution is slaked lime..

It's hard to see how you can get that poor a grasp of science without being actively biased against it. No. Do you understand the idea of quoting an (additional) example to illustrate a point? It's the figure Republican House Representatives; you would like to think that's the clever ones. It's important to recognise that, for most Americans, cuts to public services make their lives worse, so the Republican parity has to rely on deceit in order to get elected. Part of that process is the undermining of objective truth, and one big part of that is the role of science,. Credit for what?

Do you understand the distinction between " we can not imagine" something and " we recognise the physical impossibility (or impracticability) of something? Your idea seems to be a less practical version of this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodialysis

The body does expend energy in maintaining pH differences- pumping hydrogen ions into the gut makes it acid and takes energy. But I don't think it's a big part of the energy budget.

It depends... For example, it's probably safer to abstain while driving down the motorway.

One of the commonest ways of obtaining potassium carbonate is to leach it from the ashes of a wood fire. What does that tell you about how well it is absorbed by charcoal? While you could separate it from water by reverse osmosis, I think it's going to be easier to let the water evaporate.

In fairness, Nature didn't just take a stand against Trump. The whole of the Republican party seems riddled with anti-science. https://god.dailydot.com/moons-orbit-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR2ty1F0BrUSa02Pk3JZjj5ARQheENsyjLSi41EMfVY9bYC-FUCXbmb4PK4

If people being near you was assault (and I doubt it is) then assault and battery (or worse) would not be a legally reasonable response anyway. Did you miss the thing? Let's just say I think this is a medical issue, but not a respiratory virus issue.

It is utterly impractical to consider getting K2O by heating the carbonate. It will not work. If you want KOH there are ways that do work. The same chemistry they discuss here https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ie51398a020 is probably the easiest way.

Not to any meaningful extent. The decomposition temperature is very high and there's a lot of CO2 in a fire which drives the reaction in the "wrong" direction." The question does not arise. You can make potassium hydroxide from the carbonate by reaction with slaked lime

That's what I wondered about. What you seem to be doing is making a crude vinegar as a source of acid by leaching plant material and then "fermenting" it to glucose, then ethanol, then acetic acid. If you apply that directly to the soil, various bacteria will oxidise the acetic acid (to CO2) and you will essentially have added anything water soluble from the plant waste. That's likely to include essentially potash and will make the soil alkaline rather than acid. But I would have thought the cost of purifying the dilute acid was more than the cost of buying something like (NH4)2SO4

By the time Millikan was doing his experiment, the nature of the electron was sort of know. Thomson had characterised cathode rays as a stream of some sort of particle. It's plausible that Millikan was trying to characterise the particles better.

What do you think the word "glacial" means in this context?

The Raman effect is not reflection. That image is neither a reflection, nor a Raman image. It's not clear that you have enough understanding to ask good questions here. YT videos can be a great way to learn stuff, or they can be so "dumbed down" as to be useless. You probably need to expand your list of sources.

For those who aren't aware of it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRC_Handbook_of_Chemistry_and_Physics But, not every possible reaction is in there. So, fundamentally, if you produce (or find) a new compound, you might be able to guess it's properties but generally, you will have to measure them.

Why not? The temperature dependence is usually quite strong; the pressure has less effect. Yes, but it won't help much because you need to know the energy change for the reaction. https://www.chem.purdue.edu/gchelp/howtosolveit/Thermodynamics/TemperatureDependanceOfK.html Pure HCl is a gas. The case of pure liquid acids like H2SO4 or HNO3 is complicated.

How do you know it wasn't simply that your immune system did its job? Dilute solutions of chlorine (prepared electrolytically or otherwise) are certainly antibacterial. So, nearly a million fold range of H+ concentration. Doesn't look like the sort of quality control I would like for a medical product.

Not where I am. In the EU there's a limit of 200 mg/ l for sodium in drinking water. That's about 8 mMol per liter If you electrolytically exchanged all of that for H+ ions you would get a pH of about 2.1, so a pH of 2.4 means you are close to the limit for good drinking water. My tap water has about a tenth of that much- corresponding to a pH of about 3.1 Is there any evidence that it works?

A matter of indifference to the agricultural community. How? Anyway, I'd avoid the use of hydrochloric acid; the chloride ion tends to build up in soil and "poison" the plants. If there was a "cheap" way to make, for example, sulphuric acid, then the people who make sulphuric acid would already be using it. So it's unlikely that you could make it much cheaper. I vaguely wonder what would happen if you mixed powdered pyrites into the soil. It might oxidise to sulphate (slowly) .An interesting experiment; but with no guarantee that it works or even that it's cheap.