this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
1253 points (92.6% liked)

Science Memes

10885 readers
4192 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Linsensuppe@feddit.org 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Can someone explain to me why lead HAS to come from another element? Why cant it just… exist?

[–] LouSlash@szmer.info 15 points 1 week ago

Because it needs a...

... leader

[–] shrugs@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Pazuzu@midwest.social explained above:

The original post only gave half the explanation. It’s not that lead exists in general, it’s that lead exists within zircon crystals.

Under normal circumstances that would be impossible, zircon crystals strongly reject lead atoms as they form. There’s no way to stuff lead into the crystal lattice in the quantity we find them there. But uranium and zircon go together just fine, we just have to wait for it to decay into lead. The trouble is it takes ~4.5 billion years for just half of those uranium atoms to turn into lead. So any zircon crystal we find with half as much lead as uranium must be roughly that old

[–] And009@reddthat.com 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

God made lead right after creating life

[–] Whorehoarder@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 1 week ago

Actually He started with lead. All life comes from lead. Praise the lead. It's not lead poisoning, it's lead salvation! Also Led Zeppelin is Christian rock and spreading the gospel.

[–] asdfbla@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 1 week ago

A normal Star, which does not end it's life with a supernova, can only produce elements up to Iron with normal fusion. All other elements are produced by e.g. supernovas, which tend to produce heavier elements initially (due to the forces involved) hat decay over time.

At least that is my pseudoscience knowledge about this

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

Some star fusion science can create radium but not lead?