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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Ken: I think it obviously should be minus 13 degrees C. As I said I wasn't sure of temperature given in the book so long ago, and used forty just to be sure I picked a low enough temperature. I wonder what kind of a medal the guy who persuaded the Czar to have tin used got. At the very least, he should have gotten "a tin ear."
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200
enthusiast
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I think it obviously should be minus 13 degrees C.although the transition temperature (below which grey tin is the stable allotrope) is 13.2 degrees C, in practice the transformation does not occur at an appreciable rate above about -15 degrees, reaching a maximum at about -30 degrees and becoming very small below -50 degrees. The transformation is catalysed by the presence of grey tin nuclei, but is strongly inhibited by the presence of 0.1% of lead, bismuth or antimony.http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/1998/1204.htmlThe transformation is apparently called "tin plague" or "tin pest", by the way, and there appraently is still another tin allotrope ("rhombic tin") at high temperature. I wonder what kind of a medal the guy who persuaded the Czar to have tin used got. Some google sources indicate that this "buttons" story happened in World War II -- which I rather doubt. PS to dr. bill: why "Dear Ken:"??
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Dear Dr. Bill,
We are looking for a verb, not a noun, to describe the act of transformation rather than the fact that two or more different states of tin exist, right? That's why allotrope, and polymorphism, are not it...and I still can't think of the right word.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 6,296 |
Bean:
Blind stab: Could the verb be sublimate?
WW
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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PS to dr. bill: why "Dear Ken:"??
Do you honestly think you're still fooling anybody? You were banned for hurting the board itself and many of the participants. You were banned. Not any handle you might choose, including this one, which is a direct insult to me.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Sublimation is just a solid becoming a gas, without passing through the liquid state in between. It can happen under specific conditions of temperature and pressure, which of course are different for different materials. Back to the tin question...I did some looking and I think that they seem to call it an allotropic transformation. So I suppose the verb is "allotropically transform"? YUCK! I'm not pleased with that term, I feel like there was a more elegant, maybe slightly more general, one-word term for it, which clearly I will never remember... 
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The other distinct possibility is that the word I saw in 1941 is obsolete. My recollection of it is that it was only abut six letter long.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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ASp, you might want to contact Jo about a conversation she and I had on the subject. You may tell her that she has my full permission to share.
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