Trip to Netherlands - Amsterdam

        In this article I write about my Amsterdam trip. In early hours Mr. Kabakyer brought me at Amsterdam Centraal. There is a huge train station that reaches everypoint in Europe. Dutch called it “Amsterdam Centraal”

        Then I went to Dam Square. In dutch they called it “Damrak”. There is a great architectural works that remains from the Middle Age’s Europe. Almost all ways reach the Damrak in Amsterdam. In the Dam Sqaure, a huge,old and great looking Chapel (now museum) is located opposite of that white obelisk.

I strongly recommended you should enter the Body Worlds Museum. There are unbelievable things about human and animals’ anatomies. Then a lot of museums are nearby Dam Sqaure.

Dam Square (Damrak)

         

        Due to walk a lot, I tired and wanted rest a little bit. As you guess pubs are everywhere. I entered to one of them and ordered a “Heineken”. It was really perfect. No sugar addition only made from malt beer. They are the best. Due to inside of pub was dark; I took only a photo from my bubbled beer.

There are a lot of canals in Amsterdam as in Rotterdam. But Amsterdam has little difference with its hoods that are under water.

My little big buddy

Geniune Brand in beer

        Also I noticed that a lot of trees and greens are everywhere in Netherlands. They care about their fresh air, aesthetic. I’m a little bit surprised because in my country people don’t care about that scenic beauties and nature. I guess it is a matter of culture or nature love which doesn’t exist on us. Look at all of those green, trees and canals.

        Then I decided to go back Rotterdam with train. Its name is InterCity train and it goes very fast. Of course a little bit expensive such as approximately between 20 or 30€ but takes only 30 minutes to arrive target. If you buy your ticket early, you may pay %50 less. It will be benefited to click here to whom consider to traveling in Europe with that train about early buying ticket.

Trip to Netherlands - First Impressions

Hi everyone. This time I’m writing from Netherlands. :) I’ve gone Netherlands for 12 days to take a vacation. Although distressed visa period and a plane travel that hold over and tired, I think it was worth it.

By the way a little hint to who want to visit Netherlands, do not forget your hotel reservation and return ticket. Because polices who control you and your passport ask when you will go back your country and where is your return tickets although you’ve already given those documents to Embassy of Netherlands. So you should take a copy of your hotel reservation with you during your trip.

Rotterdam's Landmark

The first day that I arrived, my father’s best childhood-friend welcomed me warmly in Netherlands. Then we’ve gone to his hotel “Hotel Port”. I’m staying in Hotel Port which is located in Delfshaven, Pieter De Hoochweg. Hotel Port is at a central location in Rotterdam. You can walk everywhere. Hotel’s location is maximum 3 kilometers to main arteries. Also there is a subway station near the Hotel Port.

You can find what you want in Rotterdam. Such as night life, drugs, alcohol everything is free (legal) at the streets. But if you want a hint, I prefer to discovering new foods especially snacks. In Netherlands, you can eat very interesting thing such as “Pataat”. It means fried potato in Dutch. But there is a little difference. These potatoes are bigger than traditional potatoes. Also Dutch people have very different sauces, cheeses and crockets. Especially I like most the “frikandel”. It means   sausage that made from chicken in Dutch. Moreover if you say to seller you’re Muslim, they use halal food for you. They are so respectful people. You can find all of these in ordinary snack bars.

By the way, I strongly advise to you pataat with Heineken beer. As you know, Heineken is the best beer in the world and has little production area in Europe. I mentioned that the when you find Heineken, evaluate this chance. And I want to add something about daily-life in Netherlands. They’ve a great system in traffic. Drivers are so respectful to pedestrians and bikers. Pedestrians have great rights in traffic. In all countries this rule is included in traffic rules but not obeying. However in Netherlands, you can see this rule clearly. And Dutch people can speak a lot of languages such as Spanish, French, German, and English …. :)

I’ve been seriously affected from Rotterdam’s regular city layout. You can find where you are looking for with a native people’s simple description. So for now. I’ll write my Amsterdam trip in my next article.

Crystal Structures

In my previous article, I wrote about an introduction to material science. I believe that you understood my previous article clearly. But I could not touch on Crystal Structures in that article. Now I’m going to try explaining Crystal Structures in Material Science.

            First, I want to define what a crystal means. Let’s study..

            If a short define is necessary, we can say it is a repeating sequence which is appearing between solid’s atoms. In my opinion, it is a true but not enough defining. I want to tell my model about Crystal Structures.

            Imagine a group which is consisting of 1000 students. Probably, there are little groups in that big group that consisted by close friends.  For an example, a class which consisted by 20 students, it means there are 50 classes in our big group. As you know, almost in every class there are a lot of little groups which consisted of 3, 4 or 5 students are close friends. At the outset, we have a 1000 people group, now it is current still but we have a little problem that is disorder due to existence of a lot of little groups. We have to capacitate a coach who would organize them. By the way, that coach has a whistle. The first and the only condition is students must obey that whistle. When he blows his whistle, students must line up in a repeating sequence what their coach wants.

Did you hear it? Whistle is blown. Students lined up as a square after whistle was blown. What a perfect arrangement. After coach’s gone, they disrupt their perfect sequence and they lined up again but this time only our little close-friends groups among of their own. So it means that, perfect crystal has been disrupted. A new sequence existed now which is not long-term, only in short sequences in little close-friends groups.

When an observation made from above of those for each situation, two different shapes observe. First of them, a sequenced perfect arrangement square when the coach is on there, second of them, that group is in disarray, situation is distorted, when the coach releases them free.

At the outset that big square shaped students which we called it “crystallized” but after coach’s gone, there was a disorder. Now, they had a short-distance sequence according to the first. And we called that disarray “amorphous” in Material Science. It must be remembered, this situation is not an issue. This is just a different orientation due to atom’s natures. For an example, while metals are in crystalline forms but glass is an amorphous solid.

Solids are like that, too.  If you can control pressure and temperature correctly, you can obtain a crystal structure if that material’s nature permits. Some materials can never crystallized by themselves. You have to control environmental conditions such as pressure, temperature, humidity etc.. If you can’t control those variables otherwise solid materials can’t be crystallized.

            Crystalline materials have a sequence between their atoms or molecules. They can be metals, ceramics and some polymers but except glasses. Because of glassy materials cannot be crystallized by themselves due to they do not have long-distance sequence according to other crystalline materials.

            Types of Crystal Structures

            Discovery of Crystallite is based with mine and minerals sciences. In 1832, metals and their hydrate complexes have been discovered by an English mineralogist who was W.H. Miller has found those crystalline materials have a sequence and a selective orientation. While Miller was investigating them, he realized that they have repeating units in a sequence and he called those smallest repeating units were “unit cell”. He put forth that, if those unit cells repeats their selves in a 3-dimensional sequence, they form a solid structure. Also those unit cells have difference characteristics each one which could be separated from the others. According to Material Scientists, that is the most important method while identifying a solid material as a specific fingerprint of that material.

            In 1850, Auguste Bravais who has been inspired by Miller has published his new article which was about “7 Different Crystal Structures of Solid Materials” he defined 7 different specific lattices and combinations of their orientations at the total 14 different lattices. Also he put forth those crystal structures as a fingerprint of minerals and solid materials which they are different from materials to materials.

Those different crystal structures are below.

(Source: Wikipedia)

I can hear you’re asking “instead of might be 243 unit cells which are combinations of seven, why only existing 14 Bravais Lattices?

I’m going to explain this situation now why it can not be like that. In nature, only 14 Bravais Lattices exist as we know. Because face-centered, body-centered and base-centered Bravais Lattices can not be existed in hexagonal, rhombohedra and triclinic micro structures. If it can be like that, those structures repeat the other base microstructures. Due to we accept the smallest lattice as a unit cell, there are no more lattices in the nature except of 14 different Bravais lattices. 

With today’s technology, their characterization is too easy with using XRD. X-Ray Diffractometer can determine those different crystal structures clearly. So we can separate them which is different from the others.

           There are amorphous solids in nature except of crystals. Glass and glassy materials do not have any selective orientated grains. Their grains and atoms align randomize. Those amorphous materials best example is silica which is base materials of glasses. This is the point why glasses are transparent. Due to they have amorphous micro-structure, their grains reflect the light randomize so they can be seen transparent. I give their structural properties below.

Amorphous Silica- (SiO2)

            Also some special lattices are existing in nature. For an example, diamond, zinc blend, rutile etc.. I give those crystal structures at below.

I want to touch on a new material group which are called “piezoelectric materials”and used in sensor systems. They can generate electricity when they are below stress or vibration. How can they do that?

Their crystal structure can yield by elastically a little at that exact moment, a little voltage is induced and we can collect that little voltage. Their special micro-structure is “Perovskite”.

Diamond Shape

Zinc Blend Structure

Rutile (TiO2)

Perovskite (BaTiO3)

Stress-Voltage Relationship of
           Piezoelectric Materials

I tried to put on words that, there are two type solid materials. One of thing is “Crystallines” and the other one is “Amorphous”. I’m thinking that my modal which I touched on “group”, it may be benefit in terms of understanding crystalline materials. All my studies and models belong to me. I’ll write about “Crystal defects” in my next article. Keep in follow me please.

Material Science: Introduction

Materials, we use in our daily lives for housing, clothing, communication, electronics, food production, transporting, medicines, health care and all of our modern demands.

Ancient people used only traditional materials such as stone, clay, furs-leathers and woods. But all of those materials are not sufficient to advanced using as doing heavy works. So Material Science was evolved in time slowly due to people’s modern demands.

I hear you are asking, “What does Material Science mean in our modern lives?” Material Science investigates relationship between the structures and properties of materials and aimed to manufacture new materials to using in advanced heavy works.

Material is everything around of you what you can see. Materials can grouped in 3 groups roughly which they are called, metals, ceramics and polymers. If an academic approach is necessary, we can say, in material science, there are 5 groups which they are called, metals, polymers, ceramics, semi-conductors and nanomaterials.

Since dawn of the humanity, people deal with metals to make tools, weapons and coins. Even alchemists tried to convert iron to gold. Metals are exists as ores in nature. They have to be processed to obtain them as pure metallic phases. Often we need metallic alloys in industry due to alloy’s strength is very high than the pure forms. When the ores roasted at high temperatures their plasticity will be increased than their first situations.

In old ages, metallic products were stronger than ceramics which made from soil. So all of weapons, tools and hunting equipments made by metals due to their excellent mechanical properties. The reason why they were preferred to ceramics, metallic materials had a great toughness and strength. When a stress is applied on a ceramic tool, it breaks easily than the metallic and as you know this situation is awful for who is using that tool. But if a stress is applied on a metallic material it would flex enough until it breaks. Unless it breaks, a few deformations would be observed on that tool. But the resolve of that problem is very easy. When that deformed metallic material is heated, it will be recovered immediately on its own with high temperature.

When the ancient people passed the settled life, and did agriculture and ranched, they were needed a lot of different material groups except of metallic. Especially cooking was required using ceramic pots and pans due to their low contamination characteristics. Also they had to manufacture new moulds which do not fail against to very high temperatures using metals casting. All of those things signed the “ceramics” which they made from soil.

Ancient people tried a lot of methods until they succeed in manufacturing a useful ceramic. At the end of those tests, they reached very important information about manufacturing a useful ceramic. That was the point to obtain a good ceramic, right mixture ratio which is between metal oxides, clay and soil with in right temperature and time. After that day, everything has changed in people’s lives such as safe cooking, manufacture new metallic alloys which are casting in those new ceramic moulds etc... Also, they could store their beverages in those new pots with safely.

Until the 1930s, people sustained their lives with only two traditional groups of materials. So they couldn’t store long-lived cooked food with their traditional pots.

With the discovery of polymer industry, people found new materials that facilitates their daily lives such as packs, gelatin films etc... to which are using store all of foods with no contamination. Those new material groups which are called polymers are weaker than the other materials groups in terms of strength. Due to they are good humidity and air barrier, they were preferred to other groups of materials to storing foods. Also their manufacturing process includes very cheap methods and they are prone to mass production. We come across a lot of polymers in our daily lives, I want to draw your attention that you’re surrounded by a lot of things which are made from polymers. That new generation material group is facilitating our lives due to their easy accessibility. For an example, 30% ratio rubber and plastic materials are using in our vehicles. While an ordinary modern people use 2-4 kg average steel per a year, but use just about 15 kg polymers.

            In 1960s, instead of transistor radios, those old radios with lamps which have too long warm-up time, we had to wait warm-up time to using. So those were not useful. In that silicon and germanium were found to have a semiconductor characteristic, new generation radios, chips and transistors were manufactured owing to that new tech. Thus those huge radios, televisions and electrical devices could were minimized according to their first generation. Silicon and germanium has changed our lives in too much so Material Scientist had to investigated in a different group those new materials which are called “semiconductors”

When we came to the 2000s, that millennium disease occurred again, cancer! Either increasing fast food habit or due to using genetically modified vegetables cancer cancer cases increased. When the scientists realized that every cancer cells has a different characteristic protein code each one, they found a way kill all of those cancer cells with manufactured new nano diamond particles which unified with detector proteins. Of course Material Scientists were included livelong of those new nano diamonds every manufacturing step.

In next article I'll write about Crystal Structures in Material Science, keep in follow me please..

Nano-Diamond with Detector Protein Bonded to a Cancer Cell

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