Author notes

041. Banana Republic

usedbooks

on July 5, 2009

I didn't think I'd be able to come up with a holiday-themed strip this time. Science and fourth of July don't really sync up. My brother and I were playing Mario Kart last night, and all those banana peels proved inspiring. It made me remember college Chemistry class and a silly thing I mused about bananas once.

In Chemistry class, we dropped strips of sodium onto water and watched them fizzle and react. My professor told us that if you attempted the same thing with potassium, you would need shields and safety equipment. Potassium is also known as potash. It's symbol is K (from the Latin kalium – "alkali" is from the same root word). Potassium is the 7th most abundant metal on earth and the first to be isolated by electrolysis. It is known as one of the most reactive and electropositive metals. It decompresses rapidly in water (as do the other alkali metals) to produce hydrogen, and, as demonstrated here (sort of), it bursts into flames when in contact with water.

The potassium in bananas is not in the reactive metallic form, so there's no risk of explosive heartburn. ;-)