Re: Sensory Infixes in rtemmu (was Mauve and a related conlang question)

--- In conlang@y..., Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@F...> wrote:
> En réponse à Stephen DeGrace <stevedegrace@Y...>:
>
> >
> > Natrium is the root for the symbol of the element
> > sodium (a metal), and is the word used in some
> > languages (German, e.g.). Furthermore, Nitrogen is
> > colourless.
>
> Just like oxygen in small quantities.
>
>  Oxygen has a colour because it has two
> > unpaired electrons - it is, I believe, a triplet
> > radical in the ground state (??).
>
> Not really, but I won't enter in those details.
This contradicts what I was taught, so I'm not really
inclined to believe it... of course, I'm not really
inclined to look it up again, either *shrug*.

>  And that colour
> > is... blue.
>
> Not the gas.
...but even so, the colour blue is and can be
associated oxygen :P

>  Liquid air is blue because of the presence
> > of oxygen, and liquid oxygen is pronouncedly blue.
>
> But you try to justify something by something else.
The colour of liquid oxygen
> is due to impurities, the purer the liquid oxygen
the less blue it is.

That is an interesting thing. It is most curious then
how to my understanding and observation, the more
liquid oxygen is present in a sample, the more blue it
is :P. I'm not saying necessarily that you're wrong,
but I am saying that it goes against what I understood
to be true in working with cryogens, and so I am
disinclined to believe it.

>As for
> the sky, it is blue because of light scattering, and
this scattering is mainly
> due to nitrogen since it's the majority gas.
I ain't touching the sky... that's physics (which I
avoid as much as humanly possible - at this point in
my life, I hate physics moreso even than I hate
chemistry, although I still rise to the scientific
stuff, curiously enough :P), and therefore as far as
I'm concerned all bets are off, even if the colour
blue were associated with gaseous oxygen, which I
_believe_ you are right it is not.

> An atmosphere of nitrogen without
> oxygen would still be blue. It's only the thickness
that matters. I remember
> that the teacher made the calculations for the light
scattering in the
> atmosphere and neglected the presence of the oxygen.
Still he got the right
> colour :) .
*shrug*, that's as may be. As I said, I didn't want to
touch the colour of the atmosphere because that's a
physical moreso than a chemical question. But I think
I'll stand by the association of the colour blue with
oxygen unless shown compellingly otherwise. I have had
occasion to hear this story from too many independent
and presumably competent sources to disbelieve it. And
it certainly works well enough at a basic level. I
don't like to consider what actually _causes_ colours,
things like electronic transitions give me a headache
and I avoid them whenever I can get away with it. (Do
"free electrons" perhaps get "dissolved" from
impurities present and "solvated" by the oxygen? This
happens in some other contexts and the colour of the
resultant solution is blue, that colour being
associated with the the free electrons. Hmmm...). In
any case, as a general thing, one gets used to
associating strong colours in compounds with the
presence of unpaired electrons, as in these
god-forsaken magnetically coupled transition metal
cluster complexes I'm working with now.

The enthusiasm, the joy... :P I'm procrastinating now
instead of working on my thesis, can you tell? :) My
one consolation is that if I can get this thing
finished, I can honourably wash my hands of science
permanently if I so choose :P

>  I
> > don't think that natrium even has a relation to
the
> > French root for nitrogene (is it not something
like
> > nitrogène?.. I don't remember)
> >
>
> "Azote". It's the big difference between the French
and English word that
> mistakened me :(( .
Heh, I could remember the German chemical names easier
than the French... a sin when you consider I've had a
bilingual education in a bilingual country :P.

> > I am not willing to make statements about the
> > atmosphere, because I don't know enough about the
> > physics, but from what I know about the chemistry,
> > this is incorrect in every respect.
> >
>
> Still it's correct.
>
> >
> > If this is the case, it is for a reason other than
> > that which you cite.
> >
>
> Nope, I'm pretty sure I'm right. It's the kind of
things I don't forget, even
> if the details are fuzzy.
Well, that's as may be. But I still don't think your
assertation, as I take it, that the link between
oxygen and blue is scientifically unjustified, is
itself scientifically justified. If oxygen is coloured
in any state, it counts, and it doesn't matter _what_
oxygen's role in the colour of the sky is.

Stephen

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