Comment by Theodores
7 years ago
Helium is a 'noble element', check the Periodic Table and tell me how Helium gets to be part of a molecule. Unless a lot has changed since I was at school then you aren't going to get a lot of helium 'molecules'. It just doesn't work like that.
What I don't get is how these helium molecules diffuse into the iPhones so easily, an awful lot of helium must have to leak for that. Normally helium - balloon sized quantities - tends to prefer going skyward rather than hide in an iPhone.
But since that seems to not be the case it would be good to turn up at a concert where everyone is playing with their hand rectangles rather than enjoying the moment, then to release some helium to fix that for them...
> Helium is a 'noble element', check the Periodic Table and tell me how Helium gets to be part of a molecule. Unless a lot has changed since I was at school then you aren't going to get a lot of helium 'molecules'. It just doesn't work like that
Yeah, well maybe they don't tell you all the details and special cases in school...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_gas_compound
I checked the link and now I see why you didn't post the relevant quote:
"There is some empirical and theoretical evidence for a few metastable helium compounds which may exist at very low temperatures or extreme pressures. The stable cation HeH+ was reported in 1925."
Maybe you do get these things happening inside a particularly pedantic iphone but regular chemistry suffices here, the general idea of the Periodic Table stands true, noble gasses on the right hand side don't react to instantly form co-valent bonds with the other elements. Sure, anything can happen in the side of a giant thermo-nuclear reactor but, in every day situations classical understanding works great.
I am well aware that helium is a noble gas, and generally does not form molecular compounds. Under the right conditions, though, helium can from molecules bound with the van der Waals force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium_compounds
So under giga-pascal pressures at temperatures approaching absolute zero - are we talking about needing a black hole for that? Are these the 'right conditions' we are talking of?
This is a long way off the article, you are having a laugh!