BReaking BAd......explore the Periodic Table......For you Sam, Teach, and Tenmike

5280 shooter II

So I'm a little bored and got to watching musical scores of Breaking Bad on Youtube after watching a few episodes last night to catch up. So we Google the Periodic Table that we haven't really visited since HS. Gotta say our kids have it so much easier today with information and research just being a click away. What's a library anymore! LOL Let's not digress into that and stay on topic for now.

As for the topic title.....I know Sam has an extensive chemistry background and a sense of ironic humor, and he's versed in media drama.....Teach's and Tenmike are well versed in mechanical and nuclear technology and also have the same sense of ironic humor. I kinda look up to these guys and they would be my "Oppenheimer Team".

The first element in the title, number 35 Bromine
http://www.webelements.com/bromine/

Read it and see how it fits into the show

The second element, number 56 Barium
http://www.webelements.com/barium/

Same thing with doing the correlation

They really have nothing to do with the creation of methamphetamine.

Now I think the show's creators didn't think this much into it.........just that Walter White was a Chemistry teacher and using the abbreviations of the PT was a nice touch and picked those elements to because they augmented the show's title.

However looking into it........it's seems pretty darn clever if you read into the nature of those two elements as it reflects on the show's script.

jgunpilot

35 BRomine = BReaking
56 BArium = BAd

I'm waiting with baited breath for the conclusion. They had a great run and are ending up at the peak of the storyline, what a novel concept!

samzhere

Thanks for the compliment. My initial degree's in chemistry (analytical) with a minor in math and biology. When I started working for a company in KC named Spenser Chemical, I was a research analyst and ran analyses (gas chromatograph, liquid chromatograph, later mass spectrograph) of tracers used in herbicides and pesticides, which is what Spenser Chem did.

What you do is to "tag" a herbicide with a tracer compound, like monofluroacetic acid or for pesticides, maybe beryllium hexachloride. You use micro-amounts and the tagging chemical is carried along with the rest of the herbicide or pesticide into the plant or bug, respectively.

Later you cut leaf or stalk samples or maybe bug legs or heads (I kid you not), mash 'em up, puree them, then detect the amount of tracer compounds to see how well the actual chemical targeted the plant or bug. Weird but anybody who's worked in actual chemical research can tell similar tales. The samples were on the order of maybe 10 milligrams max.

Soon I transferred to the Spenser plastics and chemicals division and it was bought by Gulf Oil Chemicals, I then was relocated to Harmarville (outside of Pittsburgh), the research HQ. I still did tracer testing but this time radioactive (my supervisor was a PhD nuclear chemist). We'd tag oil and synlubes (synthetic lubricants) with minute amounts of radioactive tracers, like an isotope of copper or carbon or whatever. After running in a test engine for 100 hours, we'd get the engine torn down and do teeny scrapings of the piston rings or sleeves, etc, and see how much radioactive tracer had been embedded in the steel, along with the lubricant of course, testing how well the lubes would cover the parts and not just pool and slush around feebly in the oil pan.

Working with radioactive materials is extremely tricky and requires lots of safety precautions. Poisoning is a double whammy, because not only does the radiation wreck your red blood cells, but the radioactive material itself is usually a metal and therefore toxic to kidneys, etc. even if it weren't ticking.

(this excerpt is from "What I did on my summer vacation", chapter 804, ha ha)

Back to BB, it's been fun and the final episode will be a hoot, I'm sure. I'm guessing that Jesse will wreak havoc and also Walter's son? Maybe. I'm gonna miss that show.

Bryan Cranston (Walter) and Aaron Paul (Jesse) can pretty much name their next roles. I wish everyone well and know they'll be doing great work in the future.