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Human Body
63% Hydrogen
25.5% Oxygen
9.5% Carbon
1.5% Nitrogen
0.5% all
others
Origin of the elements
• Big bang created the lighter elements-ie H, He, Li
Be and Boron (B) ~15 billion years ago
• Theory suggests that it takes ~700 million years
for H and He to coalesce into stars
• Nuclear reactions inside stars are believed to
produce the heavier elements
• Infrared (IR) data from the Hubble telescope
indicates the presence of heavy elements such as
Iron and Zinc in stars
Origin of the Earth
• Formed ~ 5 billion years ago
• Solidified cloud of dust and gases left over
from creation of the Sun
• Iron and silicates main ingredients, along
with small amounts of other elements
• Resulting heavy iron core produces
magnetic field
• Silicates are major part of Earth’s crust
Water on the Earth
• As Earth cooled, fairly stable “crust” formed
• Depressions in the crust were natural basins in which
water arising from volcanoes and fissures, collected to
form oceans
Origin of life on Earth
• Water required
• Anerobic conditions for first bacteria
• Fossil remains give carbonaceous material
on Earth aged 3.5 billion years ago
• Details still not known!
• Evolution vs Creation!!
What’s in a Name?
• Hydrogen: from Gr. hydro genes (water
forming). Identified as an element by Henry
Cavendish in 1766
• Helium: From Gr. Helios (sun); made by
fusion in the sun-1st identified on Earth by
William Ramsay in 1895
In all atoms of all elements, the number of
electrons surrounding the nucleus exactly
equals the number of protons within the
nucleus. All
atoms of all elements are electrically neutral.
19
F
9
# of neutrons:
19-9 =10
Isotopes: Deuterium and Tritium
Isotopes are atoms with the same atomic number
(ie.same element) but with different mass numbers.
Isotopes of a particular element all have the same
number of protons (same atomic number) but carry
different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei
(therefore different mass numbers).