Need information on titanium

Titanium comes from Greece, in the province of Tita, which is the origin of the name of this material. It is special because it is the only plastic which is found in nature, as opposed to being man-made. Some of the unusual properties of titanium are that it glows in the dark, and it (in a way) hums in the dark (actually, it just coherently resonates such that if you sing or play music, it kind of sounds like it is humming along with you). In the presence of light, high energy photons cause this resonance to become incoherent so most of the effect is lost. There is even an infomercial they sometimes run late at night on the comedy channels where they sell a C.D. where some songs are played in front of several blocks of titanium which seem to "hum along" as accompaniment--it is really quite funny because the blocks mostly hold the key but someone shines a flashlight and they lose it like a kindergarten brass band.

Titanium is obtained by simply using a sieve on the soil in that area; the lumps of tita ore are captured in the sieve; and the sieves are left elevated on blocks. Rainwater washes away any clinging soil, and when the sun subsequently comes out, the water adsorbed on the cells boils the tita, melting it to liquid; as it cools down at sunset it forms the solid substance we are all familiar with.

If your library study turns up any contradictory info, please let us know. I don't want students to copy and paste this as their homework if there is any chance it might be wrong.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Kyle,

You asked for it! You ask this site for info and were too lazy to have a gander in a search engine where there's a plethora of info on Titanium.

Hence you got your leg pulled ... and Ti sure ain't no plastic ... it's abundant .... Australia have the largest deposits (Rutile) ... and an Englishman discovered it first of all ... etc. etc. & etcetera I imagine that Ted had a lot of fun replying !

Freeman Newton - White Rock, British Columbia, Canada

Ed. note: Please keep Freeman in your thoughts & prayers. Message from Freeman, Dec. 2010

Actually, Freeman, if I were general manager of the universe I would probably not let kids near the Internet until they graduated from college :-)

Having had two teenagers myself, I know they copy and paste from the Internet, often without so much as even reading what they will be submitting. The kids learn nothing from this empty exercise. Even if they do read it, they'll never remember a word of it. That's why I thought more good might come from putting Kyle on than by being a codependent, reinforcing a terminally bad study habit. Some student, even now, is probably submitting my response as his research, and I'd like to be a fly on the wall of the teacher's office.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

++

I had to tear myself away from an article I was reading entitled "How to Make Hydrochloric Acid to Clean Motorcycle Parts" in order to respond to this one. Woa, Ted! "...they periodically lose it like a kindergarten brass band." That was beautiful. I'm actually glad that Kyle didn't have a gander in a search engine before submitting his request. We'd have been robbed of priceless entertainment.

Randy Fowler Cleveland, Tennessee, USA

First of two simultaneous responses -- ++

Oh man...how in the heck did I ever miss this thread? Bravo, Ted!

Marc Green anodizer - Boise, Idaho

Second of two simultaneous responses -- ++

Hi Ted,

You know your reply was somewhat discouraging ... to think... and you must be right ... that kids just download info and get the spell checker to correct their spelling and punctuation (spelling at least,I have grave doubts about punctuation!)and that parents and teachers think that Johnny is a good student. Hell, no!

I really think that you should publish your remarks in the School Teachers Web ... or whatever that might be called. It's educational and thoughtful, too. I bet, too, that Kyle never showed these remarks to his parents. CHICKEN !

Freeman Newton - White Rock, British Columbia, Canada

Alas, we've had fun responding in a feisty fashion to Kyle's inquiry, but none of us have actually answered his questions. Freeman indicated that he should use the internet properly. Perhaps Kyle, in a round-about manner, did. You see, he wasn't satisfied with the usual search engine results. Rather, he sought the advise of the "front lines" folks; those of us within the forum of Finishing.com.

I'll start: Ahem...Kyle, titanium, though quite resistant to most concentrated acids (and other corrosive influence), succumbs, and is corroded by, hydrofluoric acid and compounds of aforementioned (such as ammonium hydrogendifluoride suspended in a nitric acid base). Yes, Kyle, my spelling was correct...fluoric, not flouric. Does anyone wish to follow? Ted? Freeman? Marc?

Randy Fowler Cleveland, Tennessee, USA

Hi Randy !

Yup, yer spellin' were rite fer fluoroboric but man yer punktooation cud be better. I don't believe at all that Kyle used any search engine before selecting finishing.com ... as GOOGLE, for instance, would answer most of his queries immediately.

You answered the query on 'special properties' concerning its corrosion resistance ... so the only thing not answered is it's mechanical properties versus, say, aluminum ... which, even a goose brain could find out, IF THEY WERE SO INCLINED, by using the internet (properly) and running comparisons.

Please reply, Kyle .. tell us how old you are, if you don't mind. You'll see replies from mentors who are only trying to help you and other progenies from San Bernardino.

Freeman Newton - White Rock, British Columbia, Canada

Randy,

I (and many others) have answered hundreds of student questions happily. If Kyle said "I think I have learned [such and such] but am having trouble understanding [such and such]" I would have been more than pleased to assist him. But when I think that a student will gain absolutely nothing from my time, what is the point of my spending that time.

We don't even print most of the student inquiries when they put no effort in. Here is one we 'rejected' today.

"description on gaseous carburising process indicting typical carburising atmoshpheres,temp ranges, & times. explain the basic mettallurgical principles of carbusising with particular reference to stell microstructures. indicate the typical compositions of carbursising steels and provide some graphs of typical achievable hardness profiles. provide an explanation of the origin of residual streeses in carburising and why this factor helps to improve rolling contact fatigue enfurance--sheth, west yourkshire,u.k."

And that was obviously not from a grade school student.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

When am I going to learn that I shouldn't take a sip of anything before reading one of Freeman's responses? My monitor and keyboard always end up with spray all over them. Gud tu heer frum yu ugain, thar, Freeman. Nice to know you're still your (un)usual self!

Thanks for that excerpt from one of today's student emails, Ted. Good grief! Guess I shouldn't be surprised, however. I honestly don't see how you folks at Finishing.com make time to handle all of the stuff that comes at you every day. Yes, Kyle, please break away from your X-Box and skateboard for 90 seconds or so and give us some info about yourself. We're standing by. My parents own a home in the foothills, about 30 minutes from San Bernardino. They wonder why I don't want to move back to California.

Randy Fowler Cleveland, Tennessee, USA

I'm a student who stumbled into this site through google. I am doing a project for school, however, this does not mean that I'm going to copy/paste your writing onto my work. If you want to know about my project... I'm designing a product. It's for geography, I have decided to include titanium in this product. So I would like to know where it can be found (other than Australia) and roughly how much it would cost per some unit of weight. Is that too much to ask from metallurgical geniuses such as yourselves?

Robert M [last name of minor was omitted]
- St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

First of three simultaneous responses -- +++

Robert, all of your answers can be found on one page at http://www.titaniumcorporation.com/titanium.htm.

I'm not even a metallurgist, and certainly no genius, but it doesn't take a genius to recognize that little education takes place when a student's idea of research is to just to ask someone. If your teacher wants you to just ask someone, why not just ask him/her?

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Second of three simultaneous responses +++

attn: Robert M

Robert,

Seeing that you are a scribe of GOOGLE ... Then goest thou and hit ASSOCIATED TITANIUM SERVICES ... lo and behold, you will find a multitude of things about titanium.

But if you play around with words,in this case TITANIUM, eventually (a minute for you, an hour for geniuses like us) up will pop the answer.

The other thing is to have a gander in the Yellow Pages ... in BC we have titanium fabricators and they'd be more able to answer your questions than the illiterati like me. But w But whether they might want to is another question.

My regards to St. Catherines ... and to Court Holdings, a superb chrome (maybe now titanium?) plater.

Freeman Newton - White Rock, British Columbia, Canada

Third of three simultaneous responses -- +++

Snippy comments, bad mouthing people that you are asking for help from, is not a swift idea. With that in mind, the only way for you to become a genius is to do some actual research. They do have encyclopedias on line and on cd rom if you cannot make it to the most basic library. Cost of material is directly related to what you can sell it for, so you might take a look a Titanium prices on the commodity exchange, available on you computer. Retail prices have too much "value added" to be a decent reference. Happy researching.

I have a project for titanium due this week and I was wondering if anyone could tell me the physical properties of titanium?

Please and thank-you.

Which physical properties do you want to know, Jen? If you tell us which ones you want to know, I'll be happy to tell you them.

(This is one of the things wrong with people trying to help students on the internet. A student can post a question they don't even understand the meaning of; then someone will answer, the answer is submitted, and the teacher and parents don't realize the student is actually clueless on the whole subject and dioesn't even have any idea what the question means :-)

Whereas if a teacher demands answers from books, the student usually has to understand the question in order to come up with any answers. If I were a teacher I would only accept books as sources :-)

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey