The Thought Emporium - 2020-12-04
Special Christmas deal! Get 68% off of a 2-year plan and get an 4 additional months free. Just go to https://nordvpn.org/thoughtemporium and use our coupon code thoughtemporium at checkout. __________________________________________________________________________ Opal is easily one of the most beautiful gem stones and surprisingly it is also quite easy to grow synthetically. Unlike other gems which are solid crystals, opal is made of silica nanoparticles which have to be stacked together in just the right way to produce their magnificent colors. By growing silica nanoparticles of the right size, synthetic opal can be grown that looks just as amazing as the real thing. Videos/channels I mentioned: Smartereveryday - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHecdSDz4uU Nilered - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0HfmYBlF8g Applied science - https://www.youtube.com/user/bkraz333 Papers: Stober process - https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11051-016-3691-8.pdf Opal preparation - http://www.pinfire.de/opal-literature/Some-Aspects-of-Opal-Synthesis.pdf Supercritical opal drying - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273286020_The_application_of_supercritical_drying_in_the_synthesis_of_silica-based_materials Opal images and info - www.synthetic-opals.com ____________________________________________________________________ Support the show and future projects: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thethoughtemporium Nebula: https://go.nebula.tv/thethoughtemporium Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/thoughtemporium Become a member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV5vCi3jPJdURZwAOO_FNfQ/join Store: https://thethoughtemporium.ca/ ______________________________________________________ Our Social Media Pages: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thethoughtemporium Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thethoughtemporium/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thethoughtemporium/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/emporiumthought Website: http://thethoughtemporium.com/ _____________________________________________________
Question: Where does one purchase a friend with a fully-equipped science lab in his back yard?
Alabama
Canada
Depends on how legal you want the "lab".
Andrew’s basement
The dark web
“Opal comes in a few flavors.”
Finally…. Someone else who has a taste for gemstones 😂
Sounds like synesthesia to me
@@RobertLee337CancelProof it was a joke.
crunching on chalk eh?
I said almost the exact same thing.
Finally. A professional.
BrO.....sTaPh
I know this video is very old and someone else might have given you the secret.
But to avoid that vertical banding in synthetic opals. When you dry it over months you want the container to tilt along the vertical axis by around 5-15 degrees over 4-7 days as it settles. You can also have it Roll around the axis slowly over the same time.
That's a really clever idea!
"Opal comes in a few flavors"
F-flavors?
Forbidden m&m
@@psi9899 please don't eat the shiny thing
Feed
I was like ummm no one noticed that
But really, they're all delicious.
Awww, I’m sad...I was really hoping I could do this at home with my KitchenAid mixer and my stove. 😞
You can grow Ruby’s
@@alexgarcia8365 how
@@alexgarcia8365 💖
@@onnie6431 night hawking light has a video on it
@@masonhunter2748 what are you even talking about?
Try stabilizing the opals by saturating them with Starbond Thin CA glue instead of epoxy resin. It's generally used with wood but it's water thin and will saturate the opal way better and will leave it with a high gloss finish just like resin. It's completely clear.
As a South Australian listening to you pronounce Coober Pedy is murdering my ears but thank you for mentioning us. It’s also pretty tragic that they’ve found fossils here that aren’t worth as much as their opal value so they get destroyed.
Yes, Cooper Pedy is pronounced koo-buh pee-dee
Not the fossils 😢
@Kitinelli I thought yall were tough down there. Didn't know words would hurt ya.
@@FloopyNupers Brother, what if someone started pronouncing your name absolutely horrid. Pretty sure it would annoy ya a little
@@soogynoodle id laugh
Thought Emporium, NileRed and Applied Science in a single vide?!?!?! Now this is epic
All-star video
Three of my favourite channels in one video :)
Mentions of Peter Brown too! Not the same type of content at all, but still a great content creator
And SmarterEveryDay
No it’s fate
Next episode: How I made tomato sized diamonds
Hey there 'inetza' what is your next project?
Son of tesla getting ideas again. Waiting in suspense for your next vid Integza, stay awesome.
You have a love-hate relationship with tomatoes, don't you.
@@evanmagill9114 As a child, Santa gave him tomatoes if he misbehaved
time to 3D print your own opal
What about stabilizing resin?
editing to add this info: Stabilizing resin is designed to seep into porous things such as wood. Put them into a pressure chamber to help reduce bubbles and hopefully reduce breakage. I believe Peter Brown (since you mentioned him) has used it a small handful of times on his channel.
I was gonna mention this as well. Especially the pressure pot as opposed to vacuum since it penetrates more.
Most the synthetic opals I've found (since I LOVE opal and have been looking this stuff up for years) are usually just held together with resin.
You can even find companies that sort their products by % resin.
Me: “Oh I’m gonna try to grow some opals at home cool!”
Thought Emporium 4 minutes through the video: “…and all we need is some silicon nano particles.”
The prices on the s.n.particles vary wildly.
Me too!
Making them with polymer clay can be very pretty and takes little time and money. I too, wanted to make some like in this video, though 😕
You're a lifesaver
you can make fake ones with resin and a sheer iridescent powdered coloring
"Can you grow opals"
Me: Ferb I know what we're going to do today
I was very interested until he started talking about the 10,000 psi thing. I'm still interested, but I guess I won't be able to "just" wait 7 months to get results I want.
@Bob Pearce dont keep doing this man, youll get a lot of hate for correcting people
@Bob Pearce Dude, even the guy in the video has said opals. It doesn't matter.
Yeees hahaha
F E R B
Have you tried running some soundwaves through the container as it sets its pattern? Maybe the 7.83 hz that is supposed to be the Earth's frequency. It'd be interesting to see if you could dial in different patterns or stacking of the particles.
Man that's interesting. I wonder what would happen.
It would probably mess up the opals shiny construct. Sound is vibration, vibration is constant movement. Like he said the samples sat still for months n the one time he tried motion it turned into a white chunk. So sound probably wouldnt be the way to go but its worth a shot. Maybe some sort of low range sounds possibly.
Also i just thought this, if you put sound directly around with the sample at the center, i can imagine the molecules being pushed away from the walls concentraded to a center, possibly creating an interesting piece of opal.
@@ppierson4126Some sort of resonance frequency may well be the "trade secret" to avoiding the characteristic tiger striping...
Someone needs to try it and let me know. Cause the physics off applied heay and pressure arent nor have to be so extreme as most gems to grow. So besides heat n preassure, resonance is the only other idea i have. It may take some trial n error but i can say id deffiniely go for lower frequency. Lower frequency less vibration. High frequency and you got an earth quake turning the mix into that whitw not as pretty rock.
For resins, try Opticon. You actually soak the opal in part A for awhile, then add the hardener to the stone (not the part A). Look at Emerald treatment for hints, but you do cover some of it at the end. Pressure AND Vacuum are more ideal. Warmed part A make penetration better.
I appreciate this guy actually giving the answer!
No way! I spent a long time looking into synthetic opal production some years ago and never was able to uncover the secretive process. I've got an opalized fossil collection myself. Man this is great. Thank you
Looking forward to seeing your take on it.
you should do it, I'd love to see your video about it!
Now it's your job to figure out how to stop the tiger stripes. Can't be much harder than when you figured out starlight!!
Synthetic gems are always interesting
I've found a Russian patent about an inductrial production process for making opals. They let regular quartz grow in an autoclave, and then they heat-treat it to let it develop microcracks, and those microcracks have the same diffraction effects as real opal.
So they make a big piece of ordinary quartz, then cut into small pieces. The pieces get covered in sand, and they get slowly heated up to 550°C. They mention 2 methods:
1) slowly heat it up with 10°/hour, keep it at 550° for 4 hours, and they let it cool at 10° per hour; in their testing this gave a failure rate (fractured gems) of 1%.
2) in their high volume runs they let it heat by 60°/hour, keep it at 550° for 15 hours, and let it cool at 60°/h; but that gives failure rates of up to 5%.
All the heat-treated gemstones become opalescent+white (even the fractured ones).
So you could try this process yourself with store-bought quartz, that should work out as far as I can tell... So they used quartz that was grown at 30-32MPa, 300°C in a solution of 7-10% NaCO3 and 0.5-1% NaOH. They say that this is the standard way for industrial quartz production.
If you succeed: put the opal into your batman projector, i'm curious to see how that will look.
At the start of the video, "ya, I wanna make myself an opal." At the end, "nope not for me" XD
same, at first I thought this was gonna be some easy DIY thing
One can hear the words are being spoken in English all the way through the video but after 3 mins my concentration went as if he was talking in tongues! But for those who can pay attention, its brilliant im sure! thumbs up.
I'm soooo glad it wasn't just me. I thought this was gonna be an ingredient list from walmart kind of DIY, not a "i have an entire professional science lab at my disposal, no big deal" DIY xD
opal might actually come in useful for data encryption. powdered opal, when shaken, moves around and glitters differently. if taken picture of and encoded into text, it might come in handy as an encryption key, which is the tool needed to encrypt and decrypt information.
I think lava lamps might be enough for now
@@InfestedSlab its so random though, and im pretty sure a 10cm2 box of opal powder will do the trick
Just use nail polish in a bottle. Got a topcoat full of iridescent hexagons of different sizes which when you shake/move it changes drastically. Though that one (Wizard Lizard by Colores de Carol) is perhaps a little too heavily packed to get it to change as easily as a less packed one. The base is quite thick. But still, that's easier & cheaper than getting a box of opal powder.
No
You deserve so much praise and recognition for your literal MONTHS of effort and beautiful results. EXCELLENT video, you did a great job!!
Scientists making synthetic opal:
“What are we doing again?”
“I dunno but it looks cool.”
I imagine quite a few cool things came out of this process.
I can see this happening.
looks at opal particles
“I haven’t had dippin dots in forever”
400
@Hellequin Maskharat gunpowder what supposed to be the elixir of life
The irony of alchemy
I now want to make synthetic opal bathroom tiles.
probably easiest to stick to holographic tiles...
Right I am over here thinking If I can modify this to coat ceramic Pottery with it.
I think it would really pretty if the opal was speckled in
I was thinking countertops.
🤔 synthetic opal kitchen and bath company comming when?
Thanks for the explanation about muscle cells in meat! I've seen that iridescence many times but I assumed they were salt crystals.
You deserve huge credit for your patience in drying , sanding, and spinning. The results were terrific.
Synthetic opals are extremely popular in the high end glass market. Typically they're encased in a glass which magnifies the stone and makes them even more beautiful. They can also be crushed into dust and inlayed into the glass. It basically looks like the most incredible glitter you've ever seen.
Glitter²
And you can get a cool gold chain with diamond that looks amazing for $20 at walmart as well to go with it.
I want to see this crushed opal in glass SO bad now. What could I google search to find pics of this? Searching 'crushed opal in glass' only leads me to finding Google image results of little baggies of the stuff. But I'm now INFINITELY curious to see this stuff in glasswear now 👀👀
synthetic opal is encased in glass to simulste the hardness of real opal, which is akin to glass!
@@laurenspinelli6898 try searching glassware with opal dust or glass pendant with opal dust :)
I don’t know, “is a pretty rock” seems good enough for me.
I feel like that non-tigerstripe pattern might have a mechanic solution, where during the setteling process the opal is disturbed ever so slightly to knock some of the structure and force it to stack in different ways. Just a theory, of course, but it does seem the most organic to me.
maybe allowing a thinner disk of opal to settle normally, manually breaking it into the right size grains, and putting it in another tube with the solution would work
@@ejynk considering how delicate the pellet supposedly is, that might be a little hard to achieve... but possible, none the less
@@ejynk Or maybe taking some other crystals, like the air dried bits and mixing them in as it settles?
@@mwater_moon2865 yeah. I suppose that might allow it to crystallize but I am neither motivated nor smart enough to recreate this experiment
I was wondering about this, or possibly siphoning the solution off after a while and replacing it with another "color" of the solution. Alternately, maybe putting an uneven surface at the bottom of the settling chamber, so they have different planes to stack against?
I'm gonna say this now. It's always amazing seeing people make synthetic versions of what nature makes naturally. It just goes to show you how much effort we have to put in to make things that are very close approximations of what we all consider "the real thing".
"What color is Opal?"
"Yes."
It's considered iridescent
@@El_bean.er777 r/wooosh
@@josephdavison4189 r/ihavereddit
Uh oh! Reddit moment!
@UDG r/ourreddit
Making gemstones is like modern day alchemy.
Chemistry is the direct descendant of alchemy. If you arrange sand in a particular way it can do math better than you (a chip). Don't tell me that ain't magic.
Science is magic that works reliably.
What Yoten said. Chemistry is the modern day equivalent of alchemy broadly.
@@arnaudmenard5114 I don’t remember who said it but someone sait that there are two types of magic. They are magic we use to describe why something happens(chemistry) and magic that we just believe bc why not(religion)
@@arucane8635 exurb1a
This is such an old video, but I actually have a piece of lab-grown opal without that pattern! It's wild knowing the process that went behind making it, and even crazier knowing that the process for mine is probably even more complicated.
Fun fact: William Lawrence Bragg was born in Adelaide, South Australia. The main reason it's a "fun fact" is that South Australia supplies at least 80% of the world's supply (the rest of Australia supplies maybe 75% of the rest); it's nice to see the South Australian physicist (either him or his father) involved with explaining the gemstone so common to the state.
Opals: "I'm NOT liKe thE oTher GemS."
I can’t tell if this is a Steven universe reference or not, probably because I avoid the show
@@josephdavison4189 you know the "not like other girls" memes? Yeah.
I have **Snake Arms**
yes
@Sturza Vadim Except it's not a lie 🤫😃
"Opal comes in a few flavors"
Me: I-
My brain: Don't.
do not do it it hurts in the way out talking from personal experience
Put the shiny smooth rocks in your mouth, right now! Do it!
🤣😂
Oh my God, dude.
Please write screenplays. Thank You!
In where I live, opals are called “澳宝”, literally means "gems of Australia".
perhaps the best stabilizer may be a heat activated wood stabilizer. These are made for penetration and are low viscosity. However, the principle of vacuum stabilization presupposes that there are air pockets in the material which will be evacuated by inducing a vacuum. When the vacuum is released the stabilization fluid penetrates into these voids which previously held air. I suspect there will be minimal penetration into an opal pellet which holds no fractures or voids (aka centrifuge sample). Other ways of stabilization may involve the introduction of trace amounts of aluminum after the microspheres have formed and just before centrifugation. A kaolite clay solution could be centrifuged beforehand with the wet-but-decanted pellet left in place and the opal microsphere solution carefully layered on top before it is centrifuged. This may provide trace aluminum and magnesium as well as yield a flat pellet rather than a pointed one because the nose of the tube was prefilled. Final suggestion? Place the pellet in the center of a ball of clay, wrap that in a layer of cotton and place the whole of it in a ziplock bag and forget about it for a year. This will allow for very, very slow migration of water out of the opal as the ball loses water through the plastic. This is an old trick for high water content opal that crazes after being taken from the ground.
scientists: make gemstones for little money
the entire jewelry industry: im gonna pretend i didn't see that
@sadi muntakim Yay! Artificial scarcity and inhumane mining practices!
The thing is, many gemstones (especially diamond) are a lot cheaper to get out of the earth than you end up paying for them. Because clearly "high quality" means it came from a f**king hole in the ground!
@sadi muntakim Exactly. I was being sarcastic earlier, mentioning "higher quality" since people (unfortunately) can't seem to escape this "natural is better" mentality.
The funny part is, I've seen a few ads for various diamond retailers, and the thing they're mocking with lab-grown diamonds is their size. The fact that people supposedly wouldn't accept this precious gemstone, just because they can't brag about "their amazing boyfriend" or some nonsense like that by simply wearing it near other people, really says a lot about advertising, and about people in general. That they only consider themselves valued or important when they have something that they clearly didn't actually get themselves, the product of a relationship which will most likely violently implode within a few years.
@sadi muntakim Gotta throw out the whole system that allows that to happen.
@sadi muntakim yep, and diamond sellers have huge reserves of diamonds that they bleed into the market very slowly in order to not affect the price.
Man, between the synthetic rubies and this, I so want to start making gemstone dice. They'd look so cool and would probably sell for a lot
I would also like to see them, if you ever make them.
Use resin. It can look so real. Commented in beginning of vid. Oops I think he's about to use resin. Lol
they do lol. unless getting fancy schmansy, most people spend 15-20 bucks on a set of dice. well done stone die are about that price for a single 18mm D20
First thing is dont post that for ppl to steal your idea
Add me to the mailing list, please
I recall reading about a process that imitated the natural formation, filtering a silica solution through soil and passing a strong electrical current through it. As I recall, it took several months, so patience was required. Would be fun to experiment with different solutions and processes.
You got a link or more info ?
opals are my favorite stones, and I miss wearing opal jewelry so much. I 've always wanted to try making my own opals and bismuth, but I don't have the room to make a proper setup for either. This is awesome!!!!
"as the inversed opal has way more uses than just; is a pretty rock. Like energy storage, electrodes, etc." He said bored...
"...as it can react in your lungs and coat them in silica"
Well that sounds like a horrifying way to die.
Your eyes too.
I will turn myself into living stone!
worse, you don't die you just raise your cancer risk and spend a week coughing up some nasty stuff. I worked with nano silica and you cough bricks if you aren't really careful handling it.
@@LeonardGreenpaw Flint Marco.
But it will look so pretty during the autopsy, so…
...it might be worth it?
OMG! THANK YOU! You have just answered a lifelong question I’ve wondered about since I was little. The iridescence of turkey lunch meat. I just figured they were adding a hint of gasoline or some other sketchy chemicals. What a relief.
I hope you revisit this one day. I'd love to see you make more opals and other gems.
I’ve gone opal mining at Lightning Ridge and pulling these beauties out of the ground and into the sunlight is unparalleled!
Best in the world from there.
"Cactus Juice" resin should solve your problem. Its a low viscosity, thermally set, resin which is generally used for stabilising wood. Lots of tutorials on how to use it online. I've used it before and it works fantastically.
Ooo i hope he sees this! Resin is such a odd beast
I was coming into the comments to suggest the same
I second the Cactus Juice suggestion.
It's the juiciest
Bahaha avatar reference?
One thing you want to try is stabilizing resin. Peter brown used it a few times to stabilize bread. It's a very thin resin that is heat set, so you place the porous object you want to make hard into the stabilizing resin, and then draw a vacuum to extract as much air as possible. Then under atmospheric pressure the resin is forced into the voids of the product, which is baked to cure the resin. It may be possible to place the uncured object into a pressure chamber which is then heated, to further drive penetration of the resin before curing.
Stabilizing resin could work. It doesn’t cure until you heat it. It’s very thin and can soak into wood to stabilize it. A brand I see often is cactus juice. Peter brown has used it before lol
I love it when all the science guys help each other, it's just so wholesome and amazing!
sounds like "random science avengers" to me
it only takes not listening to the 'finance guy' and the 'politician'. coming from a real science guy lol
@@LoloThomas science avengers, that was genius.
Agreed, wouldn't the world be so much better if everybody collaborated for a better shared understanding instead of competed for worthless paper rectangles and all of the unpleasant shared side effects that comes from that?
How can we bring about the conditions that lead to the Handover of societal Norms to the scientists instead of the parasitical politicians money Junkies power mongers and megalimaniacomaniacs with aspirations of world domination without having to go full out 12 Monkeys?
20:20 Hey! Resin artist here hope I'm not too late!
So to stabilize a piece of opal in resin you may want to invest in a pressure pot to force the resin into the pours of the stone. If it can take the pressure this process with two part epoxy may be your best bet!
Or for the UV resin you have- if the atone can't withstand the pressure pot; try soaking the opal overnight in UV resin in a dark black room then cure the next day. That way the thicker resin has time to become a puzzle piece.
* Third option is catalyst epoxy. It creates its own heat while curing so I'm not sure how it will work for you. It's a very thin resin and has a quick curing time. But it could be a good experiment!
Loved the video and hope this helps ✌
Amazing, thanks for sharing!
that would crack the opal
😎👍
love it .....also always caeful with catalyst epoxys...not a resin artist but construction worker...andyou have to know material tolerances and how it will react TO the reaction taking place on it....either way great tips....gonna save these for later 👍
I am a resin artist also, and I use Liquids Diamonds, it's so thin. It's by The Epoxy Resin Store (don't forget the word "The" or you end up someplace different), I've never seen a resin so thin before and because of that so few bubbles in the end. But I have to wait for it to thicken for my wall art pieces.
@abramthiessen8749 - 2020-12-09
I just realized that most chemistry videos are technically "reaction vids".
@benrex7775 - 2020-12-12
XD
@nukeape3213 - 2020-12-15
That joke made you officially a dad.
@elisabethbrecheisen7793 - 2020-12-18
That’s awful!! Take my like
@hib7295 - 2020-12-18
that's the biggest mind frick i ever had to deal with-
@FourScoreSevenYearsAgo - 2020-12-19
God damnit I actually laughed at a dad joke