Todays Thought

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play. 

-Arnold J. Toynbee, historian (14 Apr 1889-1975)

Todays Thought

Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself. 

-Charles Baudelaire, poet, critic, and translator (9 Apr 1821-1867)

Where Does One U.S. Tax Dollar Go?

 Where Does One U.S. Tax Dollar Go?

Aqua regia

 Aqua regia

Aqua regia (/ˈreɪɡiə, ˈriːdʒiə/; from Latin, "regal water" or "royal water") is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, optimally in a molar ratio of 1:3.^[b] Aqua regia is a fuming liquid. Freshly prepared aqua regia is colorless, but it turns yellow, orange or red within seconds from the formation of nitrosyl chloride and nitrogen dioxide. It was named by alchemists because it can dissolve noble metals like gold and platinum, though not all metals.

History[edit]

Aqua regia first appeared in the De inventione veritatis ("On the Discovery of Truth") by pseudo-Geber (after c. 1300), who produced it by adding sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) to nitric acid.^[6][d] The preparation of aqua regia by directly mixing hydrochloric acid with nitric acid only became possible after the discovery in the late sixteenth century of the process by which free hydrochloric acid can be produced.^[8]

The fox in Basil Valentine's Third Key represents aqua regia, Musaeum Hermeticum, 1678

The third of Basil Valentine's keys (c. 1600) shows a dragon in the foreground and a fox eating a rooster in the background. The rooster symbolizes gold (from its association with sunrise and the sun's association with gold), and the fox represents aqua regia. The repetitive dissolving, heating, and redissolving (the rooster eating the fox eating the rooster) leads to the buildup of chlorine gas in the flask. The gold then crystallizes in the form of gold(III) chloride, whose red crystals Basil called "the rose of our masters" and "the red dragon's blood".^[9] The reaction was not reported again in the chemical literature until 1895.^[10]

Antoine Lavoisier called aqua regia nitro-muriatic acid in 1789.^[11]

When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation. They re-cast the medals and again presented them to Laue and Franck.^[12][13]

Todays Thought

Mark Twain once said, “I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.”

How to Fight the Bad Logic of the Internet | Argument Clinic

The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

 The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

3M’s story, in its own words, suggests a similar crisis of culture. In A Century of Innovation, a book published by the company in 2002, around the time of its 100-year anniversary, the company compared the creation of the spin-off, which it called “the most wrenching decision in its history,” to that of its determination eight years earlier to sell its Duplicating Products Division, which sold copying machines:

Of all the businesses 3M has shed over its 100 years, the two seminal decisions that people point to as most significant involved the sale of 3M’s Duplicating Products business to Harris Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia, and the spin-off of 3M’s data-storage and imaging-systems businesses in 1996 creating a new company called Imation in Oakdale, Minnesota, near 3M headquarters. The two decisions have several elements in common—both involved businesses that 3M created and, in fact, ranked number one in the marketplace for decades. They were “homegrown” businesses—largely created within 3M and commercialized and built with the energy of many internal sponsors and champions. The businesses were risky because the products were based on pioneering technologies. They not only changed the basis of competition; they also created all new, global industries. The businesses were highly profitable for decades, and they represented a significant share of the company’s total annual revenues. They also produced many of 3M’s next generation of leaders.