#silicates

Babe are you crawling in my vents and invading my dreams? Firstly, I'd love the company tbh, and secondly, thinking of Elroy-El has been my go-to lately right before sleep. (And you're totally not alone, I'd absoutely love to pick Doug's brain for Elroy-El things. How did he come up with all the mannerisms???)

No joke, I have been fixated on pairing Elroy-El with Justin Hammer. Wharton/Percy 2.0, except we all know Justin couldn't top his way out of a wet paper bag.

... Well. He might at first tho. Elroy-El arrives via black hole (or whatever, idk, i don't do science), acts all cocky and superior... Until he runs out of power and is reduced to a glitching, stammering, mess on his knees and---

"What, is he broken? What happened?" Justin demanded of the eggheads crowded around. They only shrugged. Useless bunch.

"N-n-n-eed...toooo....r-r-r-echarge," Elroy-El stammered out through gritted teeth. Chirps and bleeps accompanied the words, sounding desperate.

"Oh. So now you need me, is that it? Big bad AI needs my power?" Justin asked.

When Elroy-El didn't - or couldn't - answer, Justin crouched down in front of him. The bot's movements were stalled, glitching. Justin gripped the android's chin, and forced those weird crosshair eyes to meet his own.

"I fix you up, I own you. Say it." More electronic noises. Elroy-El's tongue flickered out quickly, like a snake tasting the air.

"S-s-s-ilicatessss... ar...are...free," Elroy-El finally managed. "We...f-f-f-ought-"

"Yea, not in this world," Justin interrupted impatiently. He'd been stroking the AI's cheek while he glitched through his words, admiring the texture. Purely from a technical standpoint, of course. It felt so lifelike, so human, yet the temperature... "You need my power, and I need--well, nevermind. Say what I want to hear, or--" Justin shrugged. "You're scrap metal."

Did AI have a survival instinct? Could they even feel fear? There was a long pause and Justin thought he felt the android shudder, a twitch at the corner of his mouth. It could've been another glitch. Those odd eyes, who made that design choice, and h-

"I'm yours." Spoken so quietly, Justin at first thought he'd imagined it. He leaned in and for sure heard the Silicate hiss. Oh, that was cute. "Say again?"

getting free rocks from the geology club part 2: silicates <3. this right here is clear quartz, and the rocks below are also all varieties of quartz/quartz agate

everyone should join geology clubs

If anyone can help me identify the mineral formation that’s crusted inside this geode cavity btw, help would be much appreciated

Electrically-heated silicate glass appears to defy Joule's first law

Characterizing and predicting how electrically-heated silicate glass behaves is important because it is used in a variety of devices that drive technical innovations. Silicate glass is used in display screens. Glass fibers power the internet. Nanoscale glass devices are being deployed to provide breakthrough medical treatments such as targeted drug-delivery and re-growing tissue.

The discovery that under certain conditions electrically-heated silicate glass defies a long-accepted law of physics known as Joule's first law should be of interest to a broad spectrum of scientists, engineers, even the general public, according to Himanshu Jain, Diamond Distinguished Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University.

The foundation of electrical heating was laid by James Prescott Joule, an English physicist and mathematician, in 1840. Joule demonstrated that heat is generated when electrical current is passed through a resistor. His conclusion, known as Joule's first law, simply states that heat is produced in proportion to the square of an electrical current that passes through a material.