Oxygen and Magnesium Joined Forces! OMg! Quiz

Answer: Carl Friedrich Gauss

Priestley published his results first, and so is often credited with the first independent discovery of oxygen. On August 1, 1774, he heated mercuric oxide inside a glass tube by focusing sunlight through a lens onto it, thus releasing a gas. He further observed that a candle burned brighter in this gas and that a mouse lived longer in it than in ordinary air.

Over in France, Lavoisier repeated Priestley's experiments and was able to debunk Priestley's decision to call the gas "dephlogisticated air." It had been thought by scientists that all combustible materials contained a substance called "phlogiston" that was released when anything burned. Instead, Lavoisier correctly identified oxygen (the name he came up with) as a new element.

But even before those two scientists, the Swedish-German scientist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, was probably the first to actually isolate oxygen roughly two years beforehand. He too produced oxygen by heating compounds like mercuric oxide, nitrate, and manganese oxide, but his discoveries weren't published until 1777, in his book, "Chemical Observations on Air and Fire".

Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German mathematician and scientist, was born in 1777, the year of Scheele's book.

Answer: Charles Henry Phillips

Around 1695, Nehemiah Grew was the first scientist to analyze and isolate magnesium sulfate from the waters of Epsom springs in England. His chemical analysis identified magnesium sulfate as the primary component in the medicinal properties of "Epsom salts." He didn't isolate the pure metal magnesium, but his work was key in identifying magnesium compounds and laid the groundwork for later chemists to isolate the element.

In 1755, Scottish scientist Joseph Black distinguished "magnesia" as a compound, despite his not having isolated magnesium as an element. By heating magnesia alba, he was able to show that it was different from "lime" (calcium carbonate). He observed a loss of weight due to the release of a gas, and he demonstrated that this gas could be removed and reintroduced, and that magnesia alba thus contained a unique substance (which we now know as magnesium oxide) that was distinct from lime (calcium oxide).

In 1808, the British chemist Sir Humphry Davy was the first scientist to isolate magnesium as a pure metal. He used a process that he pioneered, called electrolysis, on a mixture of magnesium oxide and mercuric oxide, passing an electric current through it.

Charles Henry Phillips developed and marketed "Phillips' Milk of Magnesia" in 1872.

Answer: False

The amount of Earth's oxygen is about evenly split between that coming from plants and that coming from the oceans. Phytoplankton, algae, and other bacteria in the oceans supply approximately 50% of global oxygen production through photosynthesis. And some oceanic bacteria alone, like Prochlorococcus, produce more oxygen than all tropical rainforests combined.

In general, the vast majority of the Earth's oxygen is generated by photosynthesis, whether it occurs in the oceans or on terra firma.

Answer: Chlorine

Chemically, Epsom Salts are known as magnesium sulfate (MgSO4). They are known for soothing sore muscles in baths. Sulfur and oxygen form a sulfate that combines with the magnesium. There is no chlorine despite the name "salt".

Milk of Magnesia is chemically known as magnesium hydroxide (Mg(OH)2). It is an inorganic compound occurring as a white solid which is then suspended in a milky water with trace amounts of sodium from sodium citrate or sodium saccharin used as stabilizers/flavor enhancers. But no chlorine. It is used as an antacid and laxative.

Answer: Oxygen first appeared in the atmosphere

There was virtually no free molecular oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere before the Great Oxidation Event, Although oxygen atoms were abundant, they were locked in and bound to other molecules. What caused the initial rise of oxygen in the atmosphere was cyanobacteria releasing oxygen into the atmosphere faster than the oxygen could be absorbed by rocks and oceans.

This led to the mass extinction of many life forms that found oxygen to be toxic, and triggered the "Snowball Earth" ice age. On the plus side, it also led to the appearance of oxidized soils.

Answer: Greece

Magnesia was a district known for its mineral deposits, such as magnesia alba (magnesium carbonate. These minerals were called "stones from Magnesia"; magnesite (magnesium carbonate), magnetite (an iron oxide), magnesium, manganese, and magnet are thus all linked to this region, found there in ancient Greece.

Humphry Davy coined that name "magnesium" in 1808.

Answer: Iron ore smelting (reduction)

There are scenarios in which a substance loses electrons (is oxidized) without oxygen being involved at all. Oxidation means the loss of electrons and, while oxygen is a common oxidizing agent, oxidation reactions can occur without any oxygen present. We still call it "oxidizing", even when oxygen isn't involved, because originally, "oxidation" referred specifically to reactions where oxygen was added to a substance. Oxygen was the most common oxidizing agent known.

As chemistry evolved, scientists came to understand that oxidation was actually the loss of electrons, regardless of whether oxygen was involved or not. Wood burning and metal rusting are known as fast oxidation and slow oxidation; in both, the substances are reacting with oxygen in the air. Both involve oxygen chemically combining with other substances (hydrogen and carbon in wood, or with metal in rusting), usually accompanied by electron loss from the oxidized element.

Plant decomposition is a form of oxidation because organic matter breaks down via microbes in the presence of oxygen; electrons are transferred from the plants to oxygen molecules, releasing energy, carbon dioxide, and water.

Reduction is almost the opposite of oxidation in the sense that electrons are gained in a chemical process rather than lost, or oxygen is lost rather than gained. In the case of iron ore smelting, iron ore, which is usually iron oxide, is combined with oxygen, and the smelting process removes the oxygen from the ore (iron oxide), converting it into the element iron (Fe). The iron gains electrons and its oxygen decreases from Fe(3) or Fe(2) to Fe(0).

Answer: It is one of the heaviest of all the structural metals

Magnesium is actually the lightest of all the structural metals, meaning metals used in construction, engineering, and manufacturing due to their strength, durability, and load-bearing qualities.

Magnesium is about 33% lighter than aluminum and 75% lighter than steel, making it valuable for applications in the engineering of aerospace components, automotive parts, computers, cameras, power tools, etc.

Answer: By mass it is the most abundant element in universe

By mass, oxygen is only the third most abundant element in the universe, with only about 1% of the mass. Ahead of it, hydrogen makes up about 75% of the elemental mass of the universe, and helium comprises about 24%.

In the human body, hydrogen has more atoms, but by mass oxygen is the most abundant element making up about 65% of your weight. We are mostly made of water (H2O), and oxygen makes up 89% of water's weight.

Answer: Magnesium peroxide

The main component in "Milk of Magnesia," magnesium oxide (MgO), commonly called magnesia, is produced when magnesium metal burns in air with a bright white flame. It's a white solid that absorbs water from air (hygroscopic), and has a high melting point. It is used as a refractory material to line furnaces.

Magnesium peroxide (MgO2) is less common, being synthesized via chemical reaction, such as adding magnesium oxide (MgO) to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). It is used in agriculture to enrich soil with oxygen, and in also appears in some personal care products as a disinfectant.