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<blockquote data-quote="Phasma" data-source="post: 2705302" data-attributes="member: 466440">Then I realized I&#039;m not sure I know what I&#039;m talking about. The joke was: A genius high school chemistry student takes a test, gets his score back, and is dismayed to find that he missed exactly one question and thus would not be accepted to his University of choice. He is especially bummed because the question he missed was “how many valence electrons does a Hydrogen atom have?” In his haste to complete the test, he had answered 2.Depressed and despairing, he takes a walk alone along a beach, and is lost in thought when he trips on a metal object in the sand. Picking it up, he finds it to be a brass oil lamp, and as his fingers brush the surface a genie suddenly appears! The genie thunders, “I can grant you any one wish, but you must answer now. What do you desire?” The student immediately replies, “I wish I had gotten that question right,” and the universe explodes.My reasoning was that if he had gotten that question right, then that would mean that Hydrogen would have 2 electrons to give away (pretty sure that&#039;s what valence is. I learned this today; I should know this, but I don&#039;t). Hydrogen only has 1 electron, 1 proton, and 1 neutron. Therefore, it can only give away 1 and not 2, so the impossibility of this makes the universe explode. Either that, or it turns hydrogen into helium and with all the helium and absence of hydrogen, the helium explodes.Not sure If I&#039;m right, and I don&#039;t really want to give her the wrong info.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Phasma, post: 2705302, member: 466440"] Then I realized I'm not sure I know what I'm talking about. The joke was: A genius high school chemistry student takes a test, gets his score back, and is dismayed to find that he missed exactly one question and thus would not be accepted to his University of choice. He is especially bummed because the question he missed was “how many valence electrons does a Hydrogen atom have?” In his haste to complete the test, he had answered 2. Depressed and despairing, he takes a walk alone along a beach, and is lost in thought when he trips on a metal object in the sand. Picking it up, he finds it to be a brass oil lamp, and as his fingers brush the surface a genie suddenly appears! The genie thunders, “I can grant you any one wish, but you must answer now. What do you desire?” The student immediately replies, “I wish I had gotten that question right,” and the universe explodes. My reasoning was that if he had gotten that question right, then that would mean that Hydrogen would have 2 electrons to give away (pretty sure that's what valence is. I learned this today; I should know this, but I don't). Hydrogen only has 1 electron, 1 proton, and 1 neutron. Therefore, it can only give away 1 and not 2, so the impossibility of this makes the universe explode. Either that, or it turns hydrogen into helium and with all the helium and absence of hydrogen, the helium explodes. Not sure If I'm right, and I don't really want to give her the wrong info. [/QUOTE]

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