OK, it turns out that I was forgetting one of my most basic scientific facts. Hydrogen is weird.
Hydrogen as it turns out is not a metal – even when solid. However if you put it under enough pressure it becomes a metal, which is exactly the sort of perverse behaviour you’d expect from an element made up of only one proton and one electron (yeah yeah, isotopes I know, but I’m keeping this simple).
So – I was wrong. But I was also right, albeit only under certain conditions 🙂
The question I guess is is metallic hydrogen lighter than lithium? I have no idea – but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.
Hmmmmm, it’s 5:20pm and I’m still at work. All alone. We’re switching our new server on tonight which means all sorts of chaos and disruption. I got stuck with the job of backing up our JSPs, which essentially consists of sitting here watching them download. This is the kind of thing one would usually leave running as an automatic process, except that the connection keeps dropping out and requires a manual restart. So I have to sit here and restart it. I wouldn’t mind so much except that it means I’m going to miss part two of Doctor Who:Inferno which is one of my favourites from the Pertwee era. Not that I’ve seen it, I just really enjoyed the novelisation as a kid. And now I’m stuck here watching files download instead, which is about as interesting as… (I’m trying to think of an alternative to ‘watching paint dry’, but frankly it’s the perfect simile, so here goes) …watching paint dry. *sigh*.
Maybe I’ll sing to pass the time… # I gave my love a chicken, it had no bone, #. Hmmmm, maybe not 🙂
