Silicon, Silica, Silicates and Silicone (1998) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Silicon, Silica, Silicates and Silicone (1998) [pdf]

minds.wisconsin.edu

66 pointsKaibeezy18 comments

When I started grad school in semiconductor electronics, I noticed everyone pronounced it "si-li-cun", while normal people usually say "si-li-con". Maybe it's just a west coast thing.

Like finance/finance

To me, those are the verb and the noun respectively.

"He will finance the project." "The project got its finance."

With silicon, I think I stress the first syllable, if any.

Huh interesting, I definitely make that distinction for "refuse" but not "finance". That's from an Australian English speaker though.

It's the same for me (a US English speaker raised on the east coast who lived on the west coast for a decade).

I also wouldn't pronounce "financing" as "financeing", and I don't recall ever hearing a fellow American pronounce it that way, even if they might say "finance".

Whether it's c'n or cahn, the first syllable gets the stress; that is not the issue.

I would say that the project got its financing, or maybe that it became financed. Finance as a noun is the whole field of handling money (Bob works in finance). I pronounce it all starting with "fine".

For those who are curious, "fine-ance" / "fin-ance"

My impression was always that this was an east/west-coast thing. I could be wrong!

Sir Francis Bay Con would like a word with you.

As General Beringer said in Wargames: "And I don't know if you wanna entrust the safety of our country to some ... silicone [sic] diode."

Would it be more reassuring if it has been entrusted to silicon di*d*s?

Doctor Smith glossed over this by calling the robot a demented diode.

Ha. Old Prof. in my department - primary research on silica is a real stickler for the differentiation of these. Loves berating unsuspecting undergrads that talk of silicone.

In the Simpson's episode in which Mr. Burns appears to Homer as an Alien, Dr. Hibbert asks if the alien is carbon-based or silicon-based.

In the Italian dubbing they manage to get both wrong by translating them respectively "a base di carbone" and "a base di silicone" which actually mean "coal-based" and "silicone-based".

Infuriating :)

"Silicon is a chemical element, one of the 97 natural building blocks from which our minerals are formed"

I thought there were 94 naturally occurring elements, and anything past 94/Plutonium was man-made. What am I missing?

Initially I thought it was 92, but Wikipedia says that Neptunium and Plutonium occur naturally in trace amounts.

I'm not sure there is a universally agreed value even now. It comes down to "decay", half-life, etc. (and, potentially, how far out into space you look). Basically, depends on how you define "natural". You get numbers like 94, 98, etc.

https://depts.washington.edu/eooptic/linkfiles/The%20Element...

This many-page PDF, with actual references (to CRC etc. - lots of stuff that comes up for this question just has bare numbers, ugh), for example, points out that trace amounts of plutonium etc. occur in nature. This is from late 1997, I believe, but gives an idea of what factors lead to different numbers and which elements actually do show up naturally, even if not stable enough to exist "forever" independently.

Also, note that there are some low atomic number elements that are unstable enough and without enough "feedstock" to be found only in trace amounts (and were considered potentially not "naturally occurring" when discovered by scientists in the first place) - like "Technetium."

One last note: I just came across something in past couple weeks discussing Bismuth 209 - originally thought to be heaviest "stable" nucleus, turns out it decays in the exayears or something -

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth-209

Nuclear physics is ... not so straightforward.

Reminded me of this video... https://youtu.be/_L1305206OA

Nano particles are too small to be blocked by the biological methods, like membrane walls, so are reaching parts of the body where its now being learnt that its causing trouble in the body.

https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118....

The European Food Safety Agency wants to ban silicon dioxide in food because there is a risk through lack of quality control in food products that nano particles exist in food products and becomes toxic to the body.

https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/5088

You'll find silicon dioxide is used in many supplements as an anti caking agent and in some cases these are an ingredient found in vitamin and mineral supplement capsules, potentially negating any health benefits and in fact making health conditions worse or introducing new more dangerous health conditions, creating the situation that doing nothing would have been better.

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