Richard Bottger, age 10, of Newbury, Ohio, for his question:
What is oxygen?
When we think of oxygen we think of the life giving gas which we breathe in every minute of our lives. But this is not all that the wonderful element does for us. We stand on oxygen, we wash with it, we eat it, we drink it.
About one fifth of the air around us is free oxygen gas. But compounds of oxygen form solid rocks. About 49 percent of the earth s crust is composed of oxygen, land 89 percent of the weight of all the water in the world is oxygen. Even our bodies are 60 percent oxygen. Yes, oxygen is the most plentiful element in the world around us.
We learn that oxygen comes in gaseous liquid and solid form. Is this a matter of temperature? For water comes in gassy vapor, liquid and solid ice, depending upon its temperature. This, however, does riot always apply to the solid, liquid and gaseous states of oxygen. Oxygen forms liquid water by combining with hydrogen. It forms solid quartz by combining with the element silica. The oxygen in the air is free, it is mixed with other gases but not combined with them.
Sand is made mostly from quartz, a compound of oxygen and silica. Hematite, one of the iron ores, is a compound of iron and oxygen. There is oxygen in talc stone and talcum powder which is made from talc stone. There is oxygen in opal and amethyst.
Plants use oxygen along with other elements to build their wood. There is oxygen in the vegetables and salads we eat, rind there is oxygen in the fats, proteins and carbohydrates on our diets. True, we need oxygen to breathe and to keep our body processes going. But we also eat it, drink it, walk on it and wash with it. There is oxygen in the stones and bricks of our house and there is oxygen in the wood work.
Oxygen was discovered because of its role in the burning process. This process was a mystery until about 185 years ago. Then in 1773, two men discovered that a certain element played the star rode in the burning process. One was a Swede named Scheele, the other was an Englishman named Priestly. The newly found gas was named by Lavoisier, a Frenchman. It seems proper that oxygen, such a world wide element, should have an international introduction to science.
At ordinary temperatures, pure oxygen is a gas. The world's free oxygen floats off in the air. At the chilly temperature of minus 183 degrees Centigrade pure oxygen becomes a liquid, At the still chillier temperature of minus 218 degrees Centigrade, pure oxygen is frozen solid. Since the weather never gets this cold, liquid and solid oxygen are made in a plane or laboratory.
The oxygen atom is about the busiest fallow in the world. It is always eager to go into partnership with other elements. This is how come it forms so many different substances ‑ substances as different from each other as water, sand and wood. In addition, busy oxygen reacts with other elements in the burning process ‑ both the fire in the grate and the slow burning called oxidation which goes on in our bodies.