Something new every day. That's way past my schooling level. But, thanks for
a few moments of schollarly confusion just the same.

Did I want fries with that? Now we're back on solid ground. (deep sigh)

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"nestork" wrote in message
...

'Stormin Mormon[_8_ Wrote:
;3035603']If I remember from my chemistry days, the atomic weight of
nitrogen is 14, oxygen is 16. So, the oxy is heavier. And presumably
larger.

It's not quite that simple. In chemistry there's something called
"electronegativity", which is a measure of how strongly different atomic
nucleii attract the electrons around them.

[image:
http://www.green-planet-solar-energy...lectroneg.gif]

You can see that except for fluorine, oxygen is the most highly
electronegative element there is.

That means an oxygen atomic nucleus would attract the electrons around
it more strongly than other atomic nucleii, and that means that the
cloud of electrons around an oxygen nucleus would be smaller than you'd
otherwise expect.

It turns out that despite an oxygen atom having more electrons than a
nitrogen atom, the electron cloud around an oxygen atom is smaller in
diameter than that around a nitrogen atom, cuz of that
electronegativity. And that means that if you imagine an oxygen
molecule to look like a small jelly bean, an oxygen jelly bean has a
smaller diameter than a nitrogen jelly bean, which is why oxygen jelly
beans can migrate through tire rubber more readily than nitrogen jelly
beans.




--
nestork