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Why Rubber Can Grow?

     If there is a statement will make us really fascinated to the molecules, maybe the following, rubbery or stretchy because it consists of molecular-molecule stretch. Rubber bands, for example, can be elongated because each molecule itself has a wake up like a mini rubber band.

     Rubber molecules have a long, thin form of worms that lazy like to take a coiled position but can be straightened when pulled right on the heads and tails. A piece of rubber on its hiccup like a can of worms that are all tangled up to a tangle.

     But imagine we can straighten a can of worms by pulling our heads and tail randomly, all going to hold each other in different directions. Two worms must be intertwined in such a way that the pull on one will be extended to others and so on. All we need is a can of worms tied to each other along their bodies. Such is the arrangement of rubber molecules. However, the arrangement is not so, ie, when new rubber latex is tapped from the tree and then thickened and pressed into rubber clumps. The molecules are not strongly bonded together, so that when warmed they can slip each other and this causes the raw rubber to thud when dropped to the floor. So raw rubber is not yet qualified to be used as car tires.

That's why humans intervene to glue the molecules. They use a simple process called vulcanization, which heats rubber together with sulfur (sulfur). Sulfur atoms form bridges between rubber molecules, which allow them to be pulled away but still want to regain their original position. That is why processed rubber is elastic. The molecules can run but the connecting bridges always demand them back.

     Vulcanization makes soft, brittle and sticky raw rubber strong enough and chewy to use as a car tire. The process was discovered in 1839 by Charles Goodyear (1800-1860) -the Goodyear, whose name was abandoned as a well-known tire brand, which has been trying for decades to find a way to make rubber stronger. One day he accidentally spilled a bit of a mixture of raw rubber and sulfur liquid onto a stove that was still hot and it turned into a rubber that is strong and elastic. His findings made him famous but did not make him rich. Even at death he left a great deal of debt.

And What makes it warm?

When we stretch the rubber band, we exert energy into it and it warms up. The energy comes from muscle, so we need to eat calorie foods to replace the energy it has released.

     When a rubber band is stretched out, it causes the molecules to stretch with a more orderly order, such as marching than when it is not stretched, when the molecules are sitting huddled lazily in irregular directions. That's why to be orderly rubber molecules require more energy-to become hotter-than when molecular molecules are relaxed.

     I just inserted the effect of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This natural law expresses the relationship between energy and entropy, the degree of disorder an order: the degree of randomness, the patternless pattern. The Second Law recognizes that anything in nature has a tendency to experience energy reduction-all things tend to slow down and become cold and to experience increased entropy or irregularity-everything tends to become more random and spread scattered. If we want to overcome the tendency to become more orderly (increase in entropy), we are forced to direct the energy to regulate. It is a natural reality that can not be avoided, everything that happens is an exchange between energy and entropy.