My name is Hydrogen. I live in the Land called ChemistryLand. All kids from ChemistryLand are my twin brothers, and they are all called Hydrogen, or H for short.
My mother’s name is Carbon. All moms in ChemistryLand are called Carbon or C for short.
My father’s name is Oxygen. He is from the town of Oxygen where the police and fire stations are located. He is a fireman. All men from Oxygen are named Oxygen or just O for short.
They roam in pairs so you can call them OO when they approach.
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This is a map of ChemistryLand.
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I used to live in Hydrocarbon, a gas station town selling petroleum products like gas, gasoline and oil. Only single moms with their kids lived there. It had sometimes a very explosive atmosphere.
There was one lady Methane with 4 kids, She was so funny, people called her a gas. Her neighbor was a family called Ethane with 2 moms. They had 6 kids who fought a lot. They were a very explosive family. On the other side lived the Propane family with 3 moms. They sold gas in canisters that was used in portable stoves. They had 8 kids. They lived in a tank and were under so much pressure that they turned from a gas to a liquid. The Benzenes across the street were a circle of 6 moms and 6 children forming a very aromatic family. They worked together with their neighbors down the road to make a fuel for cars called gasoline.
Further down the road there were Butanes with 4 moms and 8 kids who were always under pressure and liquefied in lighters. The Pentanes with 5 moms and 12 kids, the Hexanes with 6 moms and 14 rascals, the Heptanes with 7 moms and 16 kids and the Octanes with 8 moms. Mrs Octane had 18 kids.
There were many much bigger families many with as many as over 30 moms with all the kids they could hold, but these bigger families didn’t socialize or get around at all. They were like frozen stiff wax figures not moving at all.
One day, our gas station community had a fire.
The firemen and policemen from the next town Oxygen were immediately called.
The men separated and so did the families. Kids were running in every direction. We were all left homeless.
The policemen took the ladies away and the firemen took the children to safety.
Then they drove us all back to the town of Oxygen. The policemen locked the ladies up and brought them down in the coal mines to work. 2 policemen were used and people got suspicious.
On the other side of the town of Oxygen, the firemen took such a liking to the children they rescued that most of them gave up their jobs, adopted the kids and became single fathers. One single father was Mr Water and his 2 kids. The Water family or H2O as they were affectionately called for short, were very happy and well liked because they got along so well with everybody.
One day the Water family had a fight. One of the sons ran away leaving the father abandoned and all alone and all charged up with his remaining son. Mr Water started drinking and got friendly with Miss Methane and moved in with her. They changed their name to the Methanols. Miss Methane, a nurse, had an obsession with germs. She was constantly wiping everything and rubbing it till it was clean.
Eventually it became too much for Mr Water, and he moved out with his son and moved in with the Ethane sisters who were bar maids. They became known as the Ethanols. They had a reputation for partying a lot.
Other single dads with single kids saw what a great time the Ethanols were having and 3 of them moved in with the Propanes and they became the Glycerol family. People found them sweet.
The gas station with single moms for cars
turned into a drinking bar for people
and the commune changed its name from Hydrocarbon to Alcohol.
One day a brother of Mr Methanol arrived unexpectedly
One of the kids eventually moved out and to add acid to the wound, this relative was hanging on to Mrs Methanol with a double grip. Naturally the family, already sour, became very corrosive. They were called the Formic Acids and compared to the sting of biting ants.
The same thing happened with the Ethanols, when a relative of the family suddenly turned up. They became so sour that people called them the Vinegars, instead of by their real name, the Acetic Acids.
The Benzenes broke their circle and paired up with 5 single dads, and one hanger on. People thought the family bloody sweet, and called them the Glucose family. But they didn`t have a sweet ending.
They moved into a wine community and the larger families broke up into the smaller families like the Ethenols. Their happiness didn`t last. They were soon invaded by single men who only wanted to be hanger-ons with a double grip. It made the families very sour. So the once sweet and intoxicating town of Alcohol turned sour. It had more acid families than alcohol families and changed its name to Acid.
Some of the Acid families had women who because of their sour character were very strong but who were unfortunately lacking in beauty. Some of the Alcohol families had women who were intoxicating with their beauty, but who were unfortunately lacking in strength.
Mr Ester, an entrepreneur hired strong ladies from Acid families, and beautiful ladies from Alcohol families and mixed them in attractive com- binations of beauty and strength.
He was able to match any Alcohol family with any Acid family and combine them into super strands of strength and beauty. He called these super strands “esters” and joined them end to end.
Mr. Alcohol gave the acid its tail and took in the orphan hydrogens and formed with them water families that he employed in his soap factory. He was able to weave these super strands into endless lengths which maintained the strength and beauty of the individual super strands. He called them “polyesters”. He made unique teams with unique strengths in his Polyester Company, making such things as bullet proof vests called Mylar and rocket proof Armour called Kevlar.
He teamed the Glycerol family with 3 families of Fatty Acids in his Soap Company. The glycerides were the managers and the 3 fatty acids were the workers. This team was called the triglycerides.
the triglyceride team broke up which of course caused the 3 freed fatty acids left to get very sour and became negatively charged.
The Lye family consisted of Mrs Sodium, who was always very busy like a bee and had a very metallic disposition to Mr Oxygen and his kid. Mr Oxygen saw his chance at getting a second boy, which he always wanted and a chance to dump his wife, which he also always wanted to do. He convinced his wife Sodium to go and neutralize the sour fatty acids and he traded with the fatty acid his stinging wife for one of their boys.
Mrs Sodium joined the Fatty Acids and they formed a new family called Soap. The boy who was traded joined Mr. Oxygen and his boy and they formed a very happy Water family.
The Waters and the Soaps got together and formed a cleaning business. They worked very well together because the Soap family had a fatty tail that dissolved easily in fat, and they wore a metallic cap that dissolved easily in water. The tail of the soaps gathered oil like a broom, and formed oil droplets which were surrounded by the waters that easily flushed the greasy dirt away.
Mr Ester had a friend called Mr Teflon who also made interesting products. He took chains of carbon atoms from carbohydrate families and substituted the H children with cousins of Chlorine from the Halogen family who were called Fluorine. He called his product "Teflon". Things do not stick to Teflon because the Fluorine atoms fit over the otherwise sharp unpaired electrons of the carbon chain like smooth snap-buttons over barbs on a barbed wire. The smooth outward facing side of the Fluorine atoms with their paired electrons so optimally and tightly fit that it leaves no empty spaces and no slightly sticking out electrons. This results in a very smooth and thus non sticky surface.
Mr Ester suggested that Mr. Teflon weave strands of his Teflon into a sheet with micro pores, and called his new textile "Gore-Tex" which is impervious to water molecules, like a mirror is to light. Because it is so smooth, it does not tear and break up water droplets held together by the special bonds made by the hydrogens which are slightly positive due to their protruding protons. At the same time, its pores allow individual water vapor molecules in the air called humidity to pass through.
One day, the circus called Nitrogen came to the area.
Children were abducted by Mr Nitrogen, the owner of the circus. He formed a family called the Ammonia Family.
Mr. Nitrogen had many brothers, and many ended up with families. He and his brothers moved in with some of the Hydrocarbon families in what was once the gas station.
One moved in with Mrs. Methane, the nurse, and formed the Methylamine Family. They made very addictive drugs.
Another attracted the ladies so much that he was invited by the Ethane sisters, the barmaids, to move in. So he did and started the Ethylamine Family.
All families were genetically related. They were all Amino Acids. Amino Acids formed neighborhoods called Protein and some became very intelligent and formed vital components to the central computer system called DNA.
Mr Nitrogen was a very flexible man. He was able to make triple bonds with the ladies from Hydrocarbon that was so tight that they exploded when broken. They formed the Cyanide Family and were very toxic.
A couple of Nitrogens took in a police man from Oxygen and formed the NNO Family. Whenever they introduced themselves as the NNOs, many thought they stuttered and burst out laughing. They became to be known as the Laughing Gas Family.
Mr. Nitrogen in the middle alternated from having 3 bonds with the nitrogen above and 1 bond with the oxygen below, to 2 bonds with the nitrogen above and 2 bonds with the oxygen below. This flapping around distracted people so much that whenever they saw the NNOs, they burst out laughing, even when they were by the dentist.
Mr Nitrogen used to perform in his circus magic tricks. One trick he called photosynthesis. With his group called chlorophyll that looked like a kite, he caught light photons and converted them to electricity that plants were able to use for energy.
With his group called haemoglobin that looked like a net, he carried oxygen that animals used to burn, whatever they ate, for energy.
One day, Mr. Nitrogen and his brothers were out when they were caught in a cosmic ray shower. They were at first separated but if that wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Nitrogen was hit by lightning just in the right place to make him roll up for a while feeling like one of the ladies. He wasn't the only one zapped by lightning. That day many of his brothers were also zapped.
Mr. Nitrogen, along with his many other unfortunate brothers were known for a while as Miss Carbon 14s. Soon after they were zapped, they integrated with other Carbons into living material.
Like Cinderella, when her time was up and she came back to her senses, the unfortunate Nitrogens who got zapped eventually found themselves again.
Miss. Carbon 14 started to decay back to Mr. Nitrogens at their known rate of decay called "half-life".
Scientists were able to calculate the age of materials that were once living because they knew that living things, once they die, stop to accumulate Carbon 14s into their cells. If they knew how many Carbon 14s got integrated into living materials, their half-life and the number of Carbon 14s still left in the dead living material being dated, then they can calculate how long ago it was alive. Carbon 14’s half-life is 5,730 years. After each 5,730 years, half of the remaining Carbon 14s decay back to nitrogen.
One day we had a very exciting situation.
A lone kid was hooked on flowers. Many regarded him as an acid freak, and a danger to the community.
One of the most aggressive families around, the Lye Family with Mrs. Sodium, and her partner Oxygen, a single dad with his boy happened to come by.
When The Lye Family saw the acid kid hooked on flowers, Mrs Sodium suddenly got very positively charged and left her family. This left her man, stuck all alone with the kid, very negatively charged.
She knocked the kid off the flower sending him to her husband, and stayed with the flower herself.
Her husband, happy to be rid of the bitch, adopted the kid as his own and formed a happy family called Water. The bitch happy with her flower was neutralized and was called a Salt by everyone.
My greatest moment in my life came when ChemistryLand, was invaded by a terrorists called Uranium 235. He threatened to destroy our entire area unless his demands to be the leader of ChemistryLand were met.
He had a bunch of suicide bombers ready to blow themselves up for his cause. He showed us that when they are hit by a slow neutron, they blow up causing a great explosion. He demonstrated how a chain reaction could be set up by recruiting and lining up suicide bombers to detonate an entire room of them.
When his demands were refused, the first suicide bomber in line blew himself up, which caused the second suicide bomber to blow up.
I was able to dislodge the last terrorist in the line before he could blow up the entire building full of suicide bombers.
From that point on everyone liked me and considered me a super hero with powers like a blazing sun.
THE END
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