Our story begins with one of the more aloof groups of elements...

 

The Noble Gases. Between them they posses a wealth of electrons, and all of them have electron configurations so stable that most lowly oxygens or fluorines would kill for.*

 

The perfect model of rich, affluent bourgeois society, the Noble Gases lived in peace and a fair amount of rarity on Earth for billions and billions of years. The lives of molecules passed by outside their manor with a fleeting desperateness and speed that they, holed up in their secure Manor, could never truly appreciate. The Noble Gases looked down upon the molecules and atoms outside of their secluded Manor.

 

"O argons, argons," cried the desperate alkali metals. "Lend us some of your numerous electrons; we have only one each in our valence sphere to spare." But the argons would never share their perfect symmetry or any of their eight valence electrons with the other metals and gases that lived in Periodic Land; for billions of years they were treated with distaste by the other atoms. On and on they struggled, just trying to attain the electron configurations that the Noble Gases had perfected years before them. Only a select few ions came close, and they, the charlatans of the Land, could pretend to be like the Gases -- but in the end, they were cursed with a positive or negative charge that made many of their kind eschew them.

 

So the elements lived, unchanged, for billions of years. Until one day, when a bold and brave scientist named Linus Pauling predicted that the heavier noble gases could, under extraordinary circumstances, change their greedy capitalist ways and bond with oxygens or fluorines. For years scientists struggled, until at last, the first compound containing one of the Noble Gases was created.

 

At the urging of the chemists and their tools, millions of nickel atoms arranged themselves into a sheltered box. Several quizzical xenons and thrice as many equally confused fluorines were led into it, and the chemists subjected their wards to a test the likes of which they had never seen before, on Earth or in any laboratory. Slowly the burners were fired. The box of nickel was heated to a downright impressive heat of 400 degrees Celsius, and upon opening it, the chemists discovered, to their delight, the existence of two entirely new compounds, Xenon Tetrafluoride and Xenon Hexafluoride, XeF4 and XeF6. The xenons screamed out their frustration to the world, for finally they had been forced to give up their greedy ways and share their electrons with another element, while the fluorines and nickels looked on with smug satisfaction.

 

At last, the scientists had overcome one of the desperate issues plaguing modern chemistry for years. At last, the Noble Gases were shown they did not have to be quite so aloof as they thought. At last, some of the Noble Gases' wealth of electrons was granted to the other elements. Justice had been served!

 

*(with the possible exception of the radons, products of radium decay that pass through the Gases' Manor for a few hours or days before decomposing into one of the masses of the looked-down-upon "bonding" elements)

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

(It's my extra credit assignment for Chemistry class, I'm making a comic and putting the panels on a tissue box coz we are running out of tissues. This was actually really fun to research and I am in the process of making the comic now.)

 

ISN'T CHEMISTRY EXCITING, COLDPLAYING? :awesome:

Jesus I feel like a starving artist over here, HELLOO??

That is actually a cool story, I like it.

nice way of spending New Year's Day :P

You deserve an award.

:awesome: well indeed it looks exciting and more appealing that way, but it comes to my knowledge too late. :disappointed:

You deserve an award.

 

Maybe the Noble Prize in Chemistry...:rolleyes:

HARDY HAR HAR

:laugh4:

 

 

If I was thought chemistry like this,

i'd probably remember it better.

Nice one.

What's the electronegativity of Polonium, since you know so much about chem?