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A podcast that helps you understand the fascinating chemistry hidden in your everyday life.
Have you ever wondered why onions make you cry? Or how soap gets your hands clean? What really is margarine, or why do trees change colors in the fall? Melissa is a chemist, and to answer these questions she started a podcast, called Chemistry for your life!
In each episode Melissa explains the chemistry behind one of lifeās mysteries to Jam, who is definitely not a chemist, but she explains it in a way that is easy to understand, and totally fascinating.
If youāre someone who loves learning new things, or who wonders about the way the world works, then give us a listen.
Hey. I'm Melissa.
Jam:I'm Jam.
Melissa:And I'm a chemist.
Jam:And I'm not.
Melissa:And welcome to chemistry for your life.
Jam:The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life.
Melissa:Okay. So this episode is sort of a follow-up on last week's rerelease.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:We talked about how Brie requested a wedding chemistry and we hadn't gotten to do it because we're in the middle of that smoke detector series.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:Okay. So one of the things she suggested was maybe Gemstone chemistry or, you know, gold chemistry, and I got really excited about the idea of gem gemstone chemistry.
Jam:Okay. And, actually, I've been thinking about doing gemstone chemistry for a while,
Melissa:but I've been thinking about doing gemstone chemistry for a while, but sometimes inspiration just has to strike. And so Bree's request was that Nice. That inspiration.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And so Bree is one of our h bonders on Patreon, so she's one of our top tier supporters.
Jam:Yes.
Melissa:And she comes to a lot of our events, and we've really sort of begun to have a friendship with her, which has been so cool.
Jam:Yeah. She's super cool.
Melissa:She does a lot of artwork where she, Like, animates different biochem stuff, which is really cool.
Jam:Yeah. That's awesome.
Melissa:So We've just gotten to know her better, and I wanted to do this for her. So shout out, Brie.
Jam:Nice. Cheers to you, Brie. Congrats.
Melissa:Cheers. We love marriage Yes. To our separate marriages. We're not married to each other.
Jam:Yeah. And also this the idea of it in a general sense.
Melissa:It's just the best. I remember when we got married, sweet. And now I think about that a lot.
Jam:I what I like about that too is there's, like, a general like, obviously, yeah, things can go wrong and stuff like that. But I like it. I like maintaining optimism Yeah. And deciding to just be that way. I felt the same way about having kids.
Jam:See, I've heard people, like, have sort of realism or even some pessimism about it.
Melissa:I was
Jam:like, I just wanna be an optimist about it.
Melissa:You know?
Jam:Before we get to and do it too, I'll make an apology like you did a few episodes ago where Right. I've just got some junk, some, What do you what do you call it?
Melissa:The viral stuff going on?
Jam:Something. Yeah. Something that's just the biggest thing is just my nose keeps being stuffed up. So congestion. There we go.
Jam:So it just makes my voice sound weird. And, also, at its worst, sometimes, like, maybe half of the episode, I'll start a day like this, know, where you really can't breathe.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And it'll actually be kinda funny, I'm sure, in for you guys, not for me. But
Melissa:And normally, Like we've said on the last episode that we did, we were cutting out the coughs and the sniffles and whatever. But because now we Also have a YouTube channel that we have associated with our, recordings. So our audio and our visual are coming together. We're doing a little bit less editing. So this is more of a live show type feel.
Melissa:Yep. So if Jam suddenly has to sneeze or cough.
Jam:Yeah. I'll just lean away from the mic and make it as bearable as possible for
Melissa:you guys. Awesome. Thanks. We appreciate Anytime. Hopefully, I don't get whatever you have, so stay on that side of the couch.
Jam:I don't think you will. I think a a kid touching everything I do, and Yeah. All the germ swapping that happens between parents and kids, I think it's avoidable between you and I.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:I'm pretty sure.
Melissa:Yeah. Me too. Okay. So here's a fun thing about this episode. I'm gonna start with a little bit of a teaser.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And then move back Move away from it, and then we'll circle back.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So do you remember in the vanilla episode where we talked about how true vanilla extract was better because it's less pure.
Jam:I do remember this, and I and I've used vanilla extract in some of the baking I've been doing lately. Like, almost every Muffin recipe
Melissa:Everything.
Jam:Requires it Mhmm. Or, you know, recommends it or whatever. And I have imitation stuff because it's cheaper.
Melissa:Yeah. Of
Jam:course. And we talked about that. So I've thought about that episode multiple times because of that.
Melissa:So the imitation stuff, the fake vanilla extract, Some people call impure or not pure is is actually very pure of 1 compound, primarily vanillin.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And the impure, quote, unquote, the actual stuff is more impure. The, natural extract that comes from the vanilla bean is less pure, which gives it more dimension flavor. It still has that vanillin in it, but it also has a lot of other things that give it a more rich flavor.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Right. Dimension in that. Okay. Well, actually, the same thing is true with gemstones. Gemstones are beautiful And look the way they do because of impurities.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And I just think that that's a beautiful theme that we're starting to see is Sometimes, we think of impurities as bad, but, actually, they give characteristics and traits to things that are good.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:And there's probably things I feel like there's a metaphor in there. Like, there's things we don't like about ourselves, but maybe Just because that is true, that doesn't make us any worse. Maybe they make us better.
Jam:Right. And it make us unique
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Which is nice. Would be a bummer if everyone was his name. Yeah.
Melissa:That would be.
Jam:It'd be so boring. Bummer. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.
Jam:Yep. What's tough though too, of applying to gemstones is, like, always a conversation about yeah. But do the naturally occurring things really make them where we should pay pay that much for them, which makes it a little bit more complicated, but I do love the, like, the I'm glad you reminded me about the vanilla thing.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Because that was really cool to learn. And also all those other flavors are super Interesting.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:So yeah. Anyway. But
Melissa:Well, also, I'll say, I am a believer in lab created gemstones. I'm not gonna talk about how labs create gemstones today, but they're the same chemically, and so it's fine. And I believe in them. And my my engagement ring actually was not very expensive because it was a lab created gemstone. And I proudly support that because the people in the labs are my people.
Melissa:They're other scientists, so I'm here for that. Okay. So let's get into the chemistry behind it and the chemistry lesson. And before I do, I do I wanna give a shout out to CompoundChem or sometimes it's called Compound Interest, but it's a website where he makes cool little infographics about different of chemistry and then give some background on it.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Chemistry and Engineering News magazine, which are Put out by the, you know, the American Chemical Society. Well, chemistry and engineering news is put out by American Chemical Society. And then the Royal Society of also puts out a similar magazine called Chemistry World. But both of those organizations have supported this and posted things with A link to the compound interest or a link to his website, and they're usually very sound. K.
Melissa:I don't typically use that as my primary resource for anything because I like to get other primary resources. But in this case, Both the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry had linked to his work, and so that is actually the primary 2 of his infographics are some of the primary sources I use Okay. On this episode. And whenever I don't primarily rely on Peer reviewed journals always like to shout that out. So Yeah.
Melissa:And thank the person who did this. I think his name is Andy for making such awesome infographics. They're really good. If you're ever bored, go check out that website. I really like it.
Melissa:I think we also follow him on Twitter. He's really good.
Jam:Yeah. I think we did too.
Melissa:So just wanted to shout that out, but let's get into the chemistry. So gemstones are essentially salts.
Jam:K.
Melissa:And salts in chemistry are usually you know, it's something that has this ionic bond, which means that 1 ion, 1 atom has given up making it positive, and another has gained extra electrons making it negative, and then they are attracted to each other similar to magnets. The negative and the positive bring them together.
Jam:K.
Melissa:Something I didn't think about before we started recording is I use my hand so much to to visualize while we're talking. Uh-huh. And now people can see it.
Jam:Yeah. That's true. That's a huge benefit.
Melissa:I never thought about that. Okay. I was doing I for those of you who are listening, I was I was putting a negative and a positive, like, 1 fist in the other and bringing them together. And I do that a lot, but nobody could see it for the longest time. So, for example, aluminum oxide is a really common mineral, and it has aluminum which has lost 3 electrons.
Melissa:And usually, there are 2 of those. So aluminum is usually 3 plus, and if you have 2 of them, they're 6 electrons missing from those 2, like, aluminum atoms. K. And then what they'll bind to is something with a negative charge without which has extra electrons. And so in the case of aluminum oxide, oxygen tends to gain 2 electrons to get it to a relatively full octet, you know, whatever.
Melissa:Mhmm. So then you'll get 3 oxygens with 2 negative charge. So there, again, we have 6 negative. K. So 2 aluminum, 3 plus.
Melissa:Three oxygen, two negative is 6 pluses and 6 minuses, and they come together.
Jam:Got it. Okay.
Melissa:And I think we tend to think, oh, there's 2 that come together, and that's 1 little unit. And then there's a bunch of units like that. But really what happens. We've talked about this before in salts and other crystal crystals is there's what's called a lattice structure. Now I like to Imagine myself shrinking down to the size of the atoms, and it's sort of this repeating pattern that goes on and on as far as the eye can see.
Melissa:And it reminds me of scaffolding. You know? Scaffolding is this three-dimensional structure, but it's very repetitive.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And people use scaffolding when they're working on buildings. But that's the the best way I can think of the lattice structure is it's like a scaffold. It just has these repeating units of atoms. Yeah. You know, as far as, yeah, I can see and there's positives and negatives, and they're they're bound to each other and making this nice, really Strongly bound together structure.
Jam:Nice. Okay.
Melissa:So that's what's going on sort of at the molecular level of minerals like aluminum side. But actually, aluminum oxide is colorless. And a lot of minerals are just in their natural state. Sorry. Knocking my mic around.
Melissa:Readjusting. A lot of minerals are just in their natural state. They have this Colorless, no light is absorbed. So something that has color, if it does have color, when the light hits it, Either the light is absorbed or the light is allowed to pass through or be reflected back.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And what we see is any of the light that's not absorbed.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:Right?
Jam:Right.
Melissa:So in this case, in colorless stones, the light's not absorbed. It just passes through or gets reflected, and The right wavelength isn't there for that visible light to be absorbed. Okay. And the way I like to think of light being absorbed, What really happens is when light hits a molecule or a a set of atoms or, like, in this case, our gemstones, If the light can be absorbed, there basically has to be this exact right amount of light that can be absorbed, and what will happen is it brings Tron and excites it up to a higher level. That's what happens when light is absorbed, and it happens in specific sizes of light.
Melissa:So if that exact right size of light is not present Mhmm. Then it won't get absorbed. So if Either if you don't have the exact right size of light or if there's no, you know, that that exact right size isn't in the visible region.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And we talked about that with acetate. Is that acetate that a lot of glasses are made out of?
Jam:Oh, who? I don't know.
Melissa:Whatever glasses are made of, I remember we had a whole conversation where it looks like they're clear. Yeah. Whatever glasses aren't made of glass. They're made of, like, a polymer plasticky type thing.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And they look like they're clear to us, but if they actually absorb all UV light. So if you were to look from a UV perspective, they look dark. Right. So their exact right size of light or wavelength of light is in the invisible region
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Not the visible region. But if, like, Something is totally opaque, you know, that's because it can't pass through in the visible region.
Jam:Got it. Right. Right. Yes.
Melissa:Okay. So In the case of gemstones, the colorless ones, they don't have that exact right wavelength that's not in the visible region. So nothing in them can absorb the light in the visible region. They may be absorbing it in other regions. We just don't know.
Melissa:We can't we don't have that type of vision.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And my analogy is, like, on rungs of a ladder, How it has to be just, like, just exactly you can't you can't miss the rung Right. If you wanna keep climbing up. And the same thing is true when you absorb light. You have to get the exact you can't miss the rung. Their light has to get you right up to that level.
Melissa:You can't go above it, and you can't go below it.
Jam:That makes total sense. Yeah. That's perfect.
Melissa:So that doesn't exist in colorless stones. But in stones that are colored, somehow, there is something present in the stone that makes it to where there's A visible light can be absorbed.
Jam:K.
Melissa:So in this case, often transition metals have a lot of extra rungs. So if you take 1 of the aluminums out and replace it with an impurity of another type of metal, for example, in the aluminum side, it could go from colorless to being colorful. Okay. So because when you take out. We'll say aluminum oxide.
Melissa:You take it out and you add in chromium, a chromium ion instead of an aluminum ion. Uh-huh. Then you've added in a few extra rungs, and when the visible light passes through, instead of being colorless, it would be red. Okay. So aluminum oxide is the base mineral for rubies and sapphires.
Melissa:But if you have chromium In the rubies, chromium impurities, it makes rubies in the aluminum oxide. If you have titanium and iron impurities in the aluminum oxide, that's a sapphire.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So they're the same base mineral, but depending on what transition metal you add in and what extra little shelves it brings with it, It can totally change the light that's capable of being absorbed and therefore change the color of the gemstone.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:So if you just look up what's the chemical structure of rubies or of sapphires, both will come back with aluminum oxide, but just with the little asterisk that the are chromium in 1 or titanium and iron in the other. Dang.
Jam:That is not at all what I expected.
Melissa:What did you expect?
Jam:Don't know. I mean, I guess I assumed that that it would be a totally different, like, Structure in terms of one of the key elements making up the crystal Yeah. Lattice would be different. You know what I mean?
Melissa:Some of them have different structures. That's true.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But, usually, the impurities are the things that are giving it colors. A lot of, the minerals in their Basic state don't have color, and impurities are what give them color.
Jam:Interesting.
Melissa:And that was the compound interest that I shouted out. You can go look at what the base Structure is and what impurities give it the color. Wow. I know.
Jam:It's just cool that the impurities, like, I kind of, I guess, expected not knowing a lot about gems in general, but, like, That the impurities might have something to do with, like, maybe some glimmeriness of the effect of light or something like that, but I didn't expect it to be all the way to Being as important as the color of the gem. You know what I mean?
Melissa:Yeah. And it takes it, it only takes, like, 1% of aluminum to be swapped out. Wow. This impurity for the color to change. Dang.
Melissa:That's crazy. Amazing? Yeah. And so just to revisit, because I feel like I got a little, jumbled up. So, essentially, when you have your colorless mineral
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:There's not rungs of ladders that can that light can be absorbed to go up to. It's Either the those gaps are too big or too small. The visible light just doesn't have any just perfect Goldilocks wavelength that'll get it from the the the electrons from the lung rung of ladder where they are up to the next rung.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But if you put an impurity in there, it opens up new rungs that may not have been there before, especially transition metal impurities. Because If you can remember all the way back to general chemistry, there's different, you know, levels where electrons can hang out.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:And the transition metals have, like, 5 extra levels that some of the other ones don't have
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:That are open and available for electrons to move to. Uh-huh. And so it just so happens that they're convenient to Add absorb light in the visible region with those specific extra rungs.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So you'll usually see them in the transition metals. Those are the metals in the Short fat part of the periodic table in the middle there.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So I think of transition metals as, like, the metals in the middle.
Jam:Okay. Okay.
Melissa:So, yeah, all you have to do is basically open up new shelves. You're building new shelves by throwing some impurities in, which allows light to be absorbed and electrons to be excited, And it changed a colorless mineral to a brightly colored beautiful, what we would consider gemstone.
Jam:Yeah. Wow.
Melissa:Isn't that amazing?
Jam:Yeah. That is so crazy.
Melissa:And the same thing is true for other gemstones as well. Like, diamond is pure carbon, so it's not as much as a salt. Like, Salts are usually positively charged and negatively charged ions being attracted to each other. It's just all carbons that because of their structure have this really beautiful repeating unit, the way they bound to each other. But if you have some nitrogens in there, it will make the diamond look more and more yellow.
Melissa:So, again, the impurity can change the color, which I think yellow diamonds look pretty cool, actually. Which brings me to a little fun fact that I I have actually about the type of gemstone in my wedding ring.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:But before we get to that, do you wanna take a stab at Summarizing it and teaching it back to me.
Jam:Yes. I would love to. I think one of the things that's always so challenging for me is The and this has happened a bunch of times in our other episodes that have, like, dipped into things about light.
Melissa:Yeah. Color and They are weird.
Jam:It's just so hard and so not intuitive. And I think, you know, like, sometimes it just happens to be that it's because it's been a long time since we talked about it. Yeah. If we happen to have a bunch of lapsed loads in a row, I'd be like, yep. Got it.
Jam:Good. But the, like, absorbing and Reflecting. You know what I mean? Yeah. Throws it off because it all feels like I don't know.
Jam:It's just not the way most of us think light works.
Melissa:Yeah. Right? Is It is hard for me too, and sometimes I'll go a period of avoiding episodes because I'm like, is there a good way to explain this? Right. But I think that's part of why we have the option for you to explain it back to me because it helps us make sure that it's solidified in our minds and for the listeners too.
Jam:And the freedom to get it very wrong.
Melissa:Yeah. Yeah.
Jam:Yeah. Now's the time. Now's the time. Yep.
Melissa:For everybody. Mistakes. You gotta make mistakes to learn.
Jam:Yeah. So the The first element that we talked about was the fact that salts, which this is our another thing that for, like, non chemist people, we wouldn't really know this definition of salts, but is is would be a combination of elements that, they come together and create this crystal structure because Mhmm. They complete each other in that way. 1 is very negative, and 1 is very positive.
Melissa:For most of them.
Jam:Okay. For most of them.
Melissa:Not always, like, carbon diamonds aren't. But for many of them, it is they complete each other. They give each other the right number of electrons.
Jam:Got it. It to the right number of electrons, and then they create that repeating pattern, the lattice crystal structure. Are all salts crystal? I know I know not all crystals are salts. Right?
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:But are all salts want to be, like, in a crystal I
Melissa:think they can be. I mean, I don't think they Like, we grind down salt, and then you can't see the crystal and structure of, like, table salt. But have you ever seen there's, like, a cave with those giant Salt crystals in it. I feel like I've shown pictures before, but, I bet we
Jam:Even if you get, like like, it looks crystal esque even though it doesn't have, like, a Real specific. I don't know I don't know whatever, but, like, even just looking at course or course or salt.
Melissa:Yes. It has that look too.
Jam:Can tell it's crystal.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Priscilla. You know?
Melissa:I I just pulled it up. You can look up giant salt crystal cave, and you'll see, like, the giant crystal and repeating structures.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So I feel like I'm hesitant to give any kind of ultimatum. Like, yes, every single salt will make a crystal structure in the right environment.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But I think most of them can make that crystal and structure because they have the repeating unit.
Jam:Right. And they want to If they have the opportunity.
Melissa:They wanna line up beautifully, which is that's kind of what what crystals are in in chemistry When you think about a crystal in structure, it's like, oh, it has a unit that is highly repeatable. And so it When it settles down into its solid state, it Yeah. Lines up those units, and then it's, you know, really orderly on a molecular level. And then to our eyes, that looks really beautiful.
Jam:It's also stable in that way too. Right?
Melissa:Yeah. And
Jam:it's and it's also easy. Right.
Melissa:Oh, sorry. I would say it's easy for them to line up
Jam:K. Got it.
Melissa:In that ordered way given the right conditions.
Jam:Yeah. And they wanna be together in the 1st place because They need each other. Mhmm. Like, they need to complete each other's
Melissa:The opposing ions.
Jam:Opposing ions. Yep. Okay. Got it. So With in the case of a lot of gemstones, there's a number of them that are aluminum oxide.
Melissa:Mhmm. Or some combination of aluminum oxide and maybe, like There is, like, Beryllium or whatever, but aluminum oxide is the simplest one. So that was the example I gave.
Jam:Got it. That's definitely helpful. I love simple. Mhmm. And so But on its own, if you had just pure aluminum oxide Mhmm.
Jam:It doesn't have a color to it.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:Because all the light that okay. This is I mean, I wanna get this right. So all the light that hits it, It doesn't absorb any
Melissa:of it? Right. But it's not absorbed. The light can just Pass through the gemstone and that, you know, it might be, like, reflected in the facets of the gemstone or whatever, but it's just It's not absorbed. Nothing's absorbed.
Jam:Nothing's absorbed, and and that's where color comes in. Whenever certain, Like, wavelengths are absorbed, and some are reflected or whatever.
Melissa:Right.
Jam:Why we see color. In this case, none of them are absorbed.
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:So it it looks essentially colorless.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Okay. And That's that's aluminum oxide on its own. And then or, I guess, like, diamonds, like you said too.
Melissa:Like Yes. Diamonds have no they don't, Theoretically, they as long as they're pure
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Aren't absorbing the light.
Jam:But if we want color to them Mhmm. It's actually impurities and Small amounts of other elements
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:That end up allowing there to be diversity in there that actually lets some light be absorbed
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:Because It creates a rung for the wavelength to grab onto, sort of.
Melissa:To be, yeah, to be absorbed.
Jam:To be
Melissa:Really, it's like when light is absorbed, when we do see color, it's because light is absorbed and it's exciting electrons.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:And so when it first passes through, they'll there's no place for the electrons to go within the visible range, so there's no rungs.
Jam:No runs.
Melissa:So they're like, oh, sorry. This light's just going. You're not getting us to the next rung, so whatever. Yeah. We're ignoring you.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:But then When the impurities are in there, they open up some higher shelves or some higher rungs Uh-huh. And or different, you know, positions of rungs. And when the light passes through, Then the electrons are like, oh, now we can jump up. Yeah. And now then we can absorb the light.
Melissa:Right. So that's That's kind of what's happening. I feel like we've talked about that same idea in other color episodes
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:As well.
Jam:Yeah. Like, antioxidants. We talked about the color element of that. It's we've heard how many different, like, episodes this comes up in in some of them, it's not even the main deal. It just happens to relate.
Jam:In other ones, it is the main
Melissa:And in bleach.
Jam:Bleach. Yeah.
Melissa:Yeah. I remember the anti accident ones we even talked about how, like, in darkness, There's not light.
Jam:Right. Well, it's like it's funny because we think of color as being, like, the thing is a color.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:But sort of like, well, not exactly.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:I'm regularly fascinated by this that the cameras we have for our baby monitors
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:At nighttime, they see night Vision in which they are using, I believe infrared
Melissa:to see that Yeah.
Jam:Which means that certain things suddenly don't have any color anymore. For instance, The rug on my son's, floor
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:In his night vision camera is just a plain rug. There's no intricate pattern even though there really is in the Yeah. In the standard visible region of light. Yeah. In infrared, it's all the same material, essentially.
Melissa:Wow.
Jam:And no difference For infrared, like, wave that are hitting it or whatever, doesn't make a difference.
Melissa:That's crazy.
Jam:So suddenly you realize, like, oh, light's just The way we see it in the region we see it in
Melissa:Light gives things color. Yeah. Without light, there's not color.
Jam:Right. And Yeah.
Melissa:If if
Jam:some sort of creature could See, which I think there are, which is Mhmm. They don't they everything looks totally different to them. And who's to say who's more right? You know?
Melissa:I was thinking about the mantis shrimp.
Jam:Yes.
Melissa:There there's an episode of This American Life where they go into the different colors, and it's really incredible.
Jam:The so all the difference does when the impurities are there, There's more rungs that the electrons can can excite to.
Melissa:Uh-huh. And
Jam:so the light hits them there to absorb it, get excited, and her. They absorb some light, which means the light that doesn't get absorbed.
Melissa:Yeah. That's the color we see.
Jam:That's the color we see.
Melissa:Yes.
Jam:And depending on which element, which imp sort of impurity is there Mhmm. Changes which which wavelength of light is being absorbed Yeah. Which change which ones we see Yes. Put it back to us, and that's why these gemstones, which have Essentially, very, very similar makeup with slightly different impurities Yeah. Can look like a crazy different color from each other.
Melissa:Yes. And I will say, I think when we think about white being reflected back, it's like a solid. You know? Mhmm. On this solid, the orange is being reflect back to us.
Melissa:Other other colors are being absorbed. Yeah. But I think in gemstones, because they're kind of trans translucent, like, you can see through them Yeah. I don't think all of the lights necessarily being reflected did back.
Jam:Right. Right.
Melissa:But that's one of those things about light that I'm like, wait. What? Yeah. So just maybe you can think of it as Some light is absorbed, and what's left over, that's what we can see.
Jam:Right. Okay.
Melissa:And there is you can shine a light. There's a, instrument that measures the absorbance of different materials. So you can shine a visible light through a material, and it'll hit a detector, And that detector will tell you what lights have been abs like, what color has been absorbed and what color has not.
Jam:Okay. Interesting.
Melissa:And then Just be based on the color, you can see Yeah. Which wavelengths of these have been absorbed and which one of these are still there.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:And you can get a spectrum.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:Okay. And that brings me to a fun fact about my gemstone on my wedding ring.
Jam:What's it called?
Melissa:Okay. So this gemstone is Alexandrite. Have you heard of it?
Jam:I think probably just from you only.
Melissa:Okay. Do what color would you say that is?
Jam:It looks to me like A it's hard to describe. It's like a pale deep pale blue
Melissa:Yeah. Is
Jam:what I would say.
Melissa:And I call it, like, a bluey green.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Yeah. Do you see maybe a little bit of, like, reddish in there?
Jam:Yes. Which made me almost say something about purple Mhmm. Because of that, but, like, the blue, at least in the light we're right now, seems more, Like, the easier thing to go with. It doesn't look like so purple y that you'd say, oh, purple, definitely.
Melissa:What happens if you see it under this light? Does that change anything for you?
Jam:It looks more purply under that light to me.
Melissa:Okay. And now I'm gonna show you a picture on my phone, and we'll post these on our social medias as well. So, there's something special about this gemstone, and I tried to capture it in pictures for you, so that you could really see the difference. This is my ring under, like, a lamp right there. What color does that look?
Jam:Like a violet?
Melissa:Bright clear violet. Right? Like, no question about the Color?
Jam:Yeah. A 100%.
Melissa:And then this is just moments later outside.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:And it looks totally different. Right?
Jam:It does. Totally different.
Melissa:Okay. So This is, this plays on 2 different things about light.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So one is the Alexandrite absorbs, So it absorbs yellows and, like, deep blues. So what's mostly left is red and Bluish green.
Jam:Okay.
Melissa:So that's what Alexandre's color is mostly made up of, which is I think part of why it was hard for you to describe because there's, like, a bluish green, which does make it look like a pale blue
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:Plus a little bit of red in it. Yeah. Okay. So Here's now put that on a shelf.
Jam:Mhmm.
Melissa:You as a camera person, as a filmmaker, I'm sure know that there's different qualities to different lights.
Jam:Correct. And even the lights tend to be a different color to them even if they don't Yes. Appear that way to us.
Melissa:They might have a larger amount of red light or a lower amount of light.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Well, incandescent light, which is usually the light that comes from candles or from flame Uh-huh. Has a higher warmth to it, which means it has more red.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:Right. If you take the blue and green that you see my light or the blue, green, and the red in the Alexandrite, and you turn up the red Mhmm. Then it might look more purple.
Jam:Right.
Melissa:But in naturally occurring light, actually, there's less red compared to the blue green. Yeah. So that Fades a little into the background. Yeah. And then it looks more blue green with there's, like, a hint of red that you can Sort of see, but it's hard to identify it.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa:And so Alexandrite is known for being able to literally change colors in different light.
Jam:That's cool. That's awesome.
Melissa:Because of the way it absorbs and what's left behind, you know, blue and red make purple.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:So it can look very purple in high Warm toned light, and it can look very blue green in low warm tone light with more cool colors in there.
Jam:Dang.
Melissa:And I even there's I don't know if I'll be able to post this video, but I even made a video where it started out in the lamplight, and then I went and put it under the light the light in my kitchen, and then I went outside, and you could see the more blue green outside. And so you can sort of see it change a different tone.
Jam:That's awesome.
Melissa:So I picked this because of the chemistry in the gemstone, letting it be multiple colors.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:Funny enough because light's 1 I don't like.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. Ding, that's cool.
Melissa:Yeah. So it plays on both the idea that There's there can be different amounts of different colors and the idea that it has different absorbents. And part of what I liked about the compound Kim, that we that I talked about, that resource is they actually have an infographic specifically on Alexandrite. And I really wanna encourage you to go look at the website because I'm showing it to Jim right now, but you can see
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:Where it absorbs and what's left. Yeah. In in the natural light, there's a much higher level of the light blue to green Uh-huh. And lower of the reds. But then in the In the indoor light, in, like, a light bulb, it can be less a blue green and more red.
Jam:Totally.
Melissa:And the more valuable, and I think they just probably maybe have a higher level of impurities of Alexandrite. They can change really noticeably.
Jam:Wow.
Melissa:But then others are a little bit more subtle. I would say mine's probably on the more subtle, but I I can notice it, especially when I
Jam:Oh, totally.
Melissa:Driving around outside or whatever different environments. It's like, Oh, my light my ring looks really this color in this light today.
Jam:I think that's cool.
Melissa:So that's a little bit about my, personal thing about my, My gemstone, and I it is lab created, which, again, I'm fine with, and it was not very expensive at all Nice. Because of that. So Nice. I'm in favor of lab created gemstones.
Jam:And you can achieve the same effect if you want to. Like, it's not like purity means no colors anymore. Know? Right. Yeah.
Jam:It would be a bummer if I was like, we we created in the lab, and now we figured out that none of them
Melissa:have any color because the
Jam:import impurities was what made them have color.
Melissa:Yeah. It's chemically, they are the same. So and a lot of them are more ethical, so that's why I tend to go with those.
Jam:That's cool. Yeah. 100%.
Melissa:And it doesn't your wife have a slightly pink or peach ish?
Jam:Yeah. Hers is I believe it's called Morganite. I don't know I don't know much about it. I just know she liked And so I was like That's
Melissa:7 on my list here.
Jam:I'll listen to what you want. Yeah.
Melissa:I'm looking at the chemical structure of morganite real quick. Looks like it's bery beryllium aluminum silicate, which is similar. There's Beryllium also in Alexandrite. Ah. Beryllium aluminum silicate, and it has I Gonna see if I can see what impurities are in there.
Melissa:It's hard to look it up because it it'll give you the base Structure. And I'm like, yeah. But I know Right. That the impurities are what makes it pretty. Okay.
Melissa:It looks like I can't find it, but maybe I'll be able to.
Jam:Yeah. Yeah. It has, like, a slight to it,
Melissa:but
Jam:not super over. It's like a pale pink.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:You know? Which you like.
Melissa:Kinda like the yellow diamonds. I feel like they're kinda pale like that
Jam:too. Yeah.
Melissa:So that's the chemistry of gemstones. I think it's a really fun one. I've been thinking about it for a while, so I'm glad it finally got to come to fruition. Yeah. And that I got to tell you about my fun wedding Ring.
Jam:That's awesome. Very cool. It's way more interesting than expected. I mean, of course, just getting right out of the gate thinking gemstones. I'm like, okay.
Jam:I'm not that interested in those.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:I already bought the one I needed to buy.
Melissa:Yeah. Well,
Jam:it's not that into jewelry, so I haven't had to worry about gemstones in a while. Yeah. So I was thinking, like, this be interesting, but it's way more interesting than I thought. And color, despite being hard to understand, is fascinating. So Yeah.
Jam:I'm always here for it.
Melissa:And color, I feel like, plays a lot into your expertise of film, but also just our everyday life. And I love the idea that the impurities are what make Gemstones. Beautiful.
Jam:Yeah. Yep.
Melissa:I think that
Jam:That's cool.
Melissa:Is a really beautiful sort of underlying story to this chemistry lesson. Yeah. So yeah.
Jam:Very cool. I love it.
Melissa:Awesome. Well, that was fun. Thanks, Brie, for, giving us that suggestion. But thinking speaking of fun things, fun like my wedding ring, fun like this topic,
Jam:is
Melissa:there any fun thing that you have have had recently?
Jam:Yes. Actually, yeah. So a friend of ours that, Melissa and I both known for a while, or, I guess, both of them, but more so our friend Josh, who've done longer, but him and his wife moved From our area
Melissa:Mhmm.
Jam:To Oregon, to the Portland area about
Melissa:He's a chemist.
Jam:He's a chemist. About a a little less than a year ago, they moved there. And they were in town this past week, and so it took a lot of Discussions and negotiations, but we find it's not a common time for both him and his wife Autumn, and Em and I and the kids to be able to Hang out for, like, just It only really worked for, like, an hour and a half. They had to go somewhere else. We had to get back, but we had an hour and a half of just time to catch up.
Melissa:I love that.
Jam:Which was awesome, and we just Missed getting to see them more frequently, but they're doing great up there. And they so it's really fun to get to hang out and catch up. They hadn't seen the kids in a while other than just videos and stuff. And, they hadn't met our younger kid either. So
Melissa:thinking. They hadn't seen the kids, but I think last time it was just a kid.
Jam:Yeah. Just kid. Exactly. But they also, extra bonus points, gave me a bag of coffee Oh. From my favorite Coffee shop.
Jam:It had a bunch, and there's so many good ones, so it's hard to pick. My favorite coffee shop in Portland that whenever and then I went there in, like, 2018 or whatever.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:And so they brought me back coffee from there, which is so sweet, and I love it. And it's also the coffee shop that is featured in, comedians in cars getting coffee Oh. When Jerry Seinfeld interviews Fred Armisen.
Melissa:Oh, that's it. I bet that's a fun episode. Yep.
Jam:Checked so many boxes for me, and so visiting that shop was super cool because on there, but also their coffee was amazing. So, anyway, a lot of Fun things all packed into 1 That
Melissa:is a fun thing.
Jam:Fun interaction. So
Melissa:Did I tell you that my brother also went up to the Seattle area? I mean, I guess Seattle's Different than Portland, but went up to that region of the country Uh-huh. And brought us back some coffee as well.
Jam:I don't think so.
Melissa:So Mason's more the coffee person in our house, But he brought us back coffee, and he got me a Seattle Kraken shirt because that's the new hockey team that just can't do this
Jam:dance. Nice.
Melissa:It's a really soft, Cute shirt.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:But we watched our nephew, and that actually kind of transitions into what's going on in my life lately, Is it's been chaotic? Right. I think I mentioned I've been traveling a lot. I I literally was out of town or had a large event Every weekend in February March.
Jam:Yeah.
Melissa:And this next weekend so last weekend in March, That gives you a date of when this was actually recorded. And that weekend, I'm going out of town for a conference. And Then after that, in April, my life should calm down significantly. I think I only have 1 trip in April Nice. Instead of 1 every weekend.
Jam:Nice.
Melissa:And they haven't all been work trips. A lot of them have been personal trips too, but, you know, it's just lots of people having babies. Lots of baby showers, lots of weddings, lots of events Yeah. Plus going out of town and stuff. You know?
Melissa:So I'm really excited for April to be a calm season of life. Yep. But it has been really fun, like, all the things I've gotten to do and be involved in lately. So
Jam:Yeah. It's nice whenever the cool fun involved in things can Be sort of spread out
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:Instead of a concentrated Yeah. Chaotic dose.
Melissa:It kind of is weird. Like, I know so many people whose babies are due in April in May this year to the point where it's like, oh, of course, there are lots of baby showers happening because Yeah. So many babies are due. I, like, can't even keep track of which ones. I'm like, wait.
Melissa:Do you know the gender, and, when are you due? I know sometime this summer because everyone I know is due this summer. Yeah. There's lots of that happening. So
Jam:Yeah. There's been times where, and it only works if everyone knows each other. We're, like, they I've heard of in different kind of parts of our friend group and kind of network that we know of. Yeah. They just had to combine several.
Jam:Yeah. Because it's like, okay. There's these 5 gals. They all know each other well, and they're all due within, like, the same, like, 2 or 3 months
Melissa:span. Fun.
Jam:Of them. Just gonna happen.
Melissa:Have a table for each person. You just drop a gift, drop a gift, drop a gift.
Jam:Everybody you see everybody, and then you get to see each other. You know, if you're one of people who's gonna have a baby, then you get to hang out with your other friends who are having baby shoes. Anyway, I think it's a good idea when that happens. But sometimes, it's people you know from different circles, so I was like, there's no way.
Melissa:No way.
Jam:Can't have that.
Melissa:Yeah. Mason, went to work, and he's been I make baked goods for almost every baby shower. And so he's been bringing the extra baked goods up to work. You know? And so he said, oh, yeah.
Melissa:We're there's another baby shower, and he's got an older guy who's, like, close to retirement who works near him. And that guy was like, You know, baby showers are contagious. And Mason was like, oh, we know the number that we've been to. Yeah.
Jam:Oh, yeah.
Melissa:But they're all really fun and sweet and Special, and I love little kids. So I think, you know, I'm really happy that I've been able to be a part of it, but I'm also looking forward to A calm season of life Yep. Coming up. So
Jam:Nice. Very cool.
Melissa:Yeah. So that's what's going on with me.
Jam:That's great.
Melissa:So thanks, Jim, for, you know, for, look, coming and learning about gemstones and being excited about my cool wedding ring.
Jam:Anytime.
Melissa:Thanks, Brie for getting married and giving us a suggestion for this episode. I've been wanting to do it for a while. And thanks to all of you listeners and watchers who make it possible for us to do chemistry for your life. I mean, really, our Patreon supporters are the reason why we can continue to Make sure this podcast happens. So we really could not do it without y'all.
Melissa:Yeah.
Jam:A 100%. And Melissa and I have a lot of our own ideas for topics Never left. But like we said, you know, Bree suggested this one. And some of the best ideas we have, for episode that turned out really well are come from you guys. So if you have a question or idea, You can reach out to us on our website atchemforyourlife.com.
Jam:That's femforyourlife.com to share your thoughts and ideas. If you like to help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, go to patreon.com/chem for your life or tap the link in our show notes to join our super cool community of patrons. If you're not able to do that, you can stop us by subscribing to your favorite podcast app on YouTube and rating and writing our view on Apple Podcasts or just liking videos on YouTube. That also really helps us to share chemistry with even more people.
Melissa:This episode of chemistry for your life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson, And Jam Robinson is our producer. This episode was made possible by our financial supporters over on Patreon. It seriously means so much to us that you wanna help us make chemistry accessible for more people and that you're helping us keep the show going. Those supporters are Avishai B, Brie m, Brian k, Chris and Claire s, Chelsea b, Derek l, Emerson w, Hunter r, Jacob t, Christina g, Lynn s, Melissa p, Nicole c, Steven b, Shadow, Suzanne s, Timothy p, and Venus r. Thank you again for everything you all do to make chemistry for your life happen.
Jam:And if you like to learn more about today's chemistry lesson, you can check out the references for this episode in our show notes or in the video
Melissa:Yay, chemistry.