Description

Ions of uranium, europium, neodymium, terbium and lots of other stuff can fluoresce. In this video I show a lot of them and also try to explain in simple terms how it works. Full music credit: Kevin MacLeod www.incompetech.com All under CC license. Tracks used: 0:30 - 0:50 3:03 - 3:43 4:59 - 5:15 'Darkness is Coming' ISRC: USUAN1100584 1:53 - 2:08 'Night Cave' ISRC: USUAN1100446 4:30 - 4:58 'Bathed in the Light' ISRC: USUAN1100308 Bonus info: I use a generic 18 watt longwave UV-blacklight in this video - not the dangerous shortwave UV even though it could give even better results. Lots of the stuff can be bought on eBay, like Onyx Metall http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/onyxmetall The little test tube with quinine in the beginning is a sample of tonic water that I tried to boil down to concentrate the quinine more. It didn't work out well - lots of sugar in the drink so it just turns into a brown syrup and doesn't really fluoresce more. Be careful with most of the stuff in the video. Always search for the MSDS for a chemical before you buy it. Especially Rhodamine B is dangerous and can ruin your eyes - wear safety glasses and gloves or even better: stay away from it. The radioactive minerals also needs to be treated with respect. It is often the outer most electrons that can be excited - the valence electrons. In the rare earth metals it can happen with inner electrons though - like in neodymium. All the europium samples are europium oxide. I believe the LEGO pieces are not only fluorescent but also so-called LISA plastic. LISA is short for 'licht-sammeln' which is German for 'light-gathering'. It is plastic with high internal reflection so the light is transmitted inside the plastic and send out of the edges - like optical fiber cables. But LEGO likes to keep their secrets so it's just my guess. Almost all transparent LEGOs are made of polycarbonate - which LISA plastic also can be. Normal LEGO is made of ABS.