"the actualy molecules of the alumni..."

[swingerofbirch]

I actually didn't know whether aluminum had molecules or not, but when I heard the speech, I thought it was a strange thing to be proud of. Apple is really becoming a hardware company first. More and more on Apple product pages, there is talk about the machinery used to make the products, such as on the iPhone page where they talk about the 29 MP camera that detects defects on iPhones or something like that. I miss the days where Steve Jobs would present and get really excited about small features in Mac software products, like Keynote.

 

[Mike in Kansas]

It sounds as if the chemist is confusing compounds with molecules.... There is nothing that says a molecule has to be made up of different elements. If the aluminum atoms are bonded together, they form a molecule.

 

[rpe33]

I thought Schiller said adamantium?

 

[leadfeather89]

It sounds as if the chemist is confusing compounds with molecules.... There is nothing that says a molecule has to be made up of different elements. If the aluminum atoms are bonded together, they form a molecule.

Correct!
"A molecule is a neutral group of two or more atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds." says the internet.
Al is an atom, so lots of Al ---> molecule(s) of Al

 

[laserbeam273]

Correct!
"A molecule is a neutral group of two or more atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds." says the internet.
Al is an atom, so lots of Al ---> molecule(s) of Al

That Internet definition is good, but your conclusion simplified some of the detail. It specificies covalent bonds, but plain Al will form a metallic lattice, not covalent bonds.

However as previously pointed out, the aluminium present in macs would be an alloy - it is possible that enough elements of the right type could lead to a proper covalent bond structure, but I think it wouldn't be enough. From my civil engineering days, it's usually like 1% w/w or so. This is far from a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio that would be needed for an alloy. A chemist/metallurgist would need to advise, but I'm guessing that the bonds are predominantly a metallic lattice, not covalent, and this Phil used one word slightly incorrectly. Oh no.

 

[12dylan34]

I really don't think that it matters, but using the term "atoms" instead of "molecules" would have been more correct. Alloys are not chemically bonded, but are rather just solidified mixtures of different metals.

Metallic lattices are not considered molecules, but simply a lattice of metal atom nuclei with electrons moving freely among them.

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It sounds as if the chemist is confusing compounds with molecules.... There is nothing that says a molecule has to be made up of different elements. If the aluminum atoms are bonded together, they form a molecule.

Sort of correct, but not. Multiple aluminum atoms would never bond covalently. Yes, molecules can contain only the same type of atom (O2 for example), but they HAVE to be covalently bonded together to be considered molecules. Aluminum atoms in a lattice are just next to one another. They aren't covalently bonded.

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Correct!
"A molecule is a neutral group of two or more atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds." says the internet.
Al is an atom, so lots of Al ---> molecule(s) of Al

Atoms in a metal lattice aren't held together by covalent bonds. They're just sitting there next to one another.

This is what's going on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_bond