Hydrogen

I hope you don’t mind this, but right now I’m in the mood to launch into a scientific discussion. The topic? Hydrogen, which is a pretty darned amazing little element. I don’t know if you have ever given thought to elements on the periodic table, and why they might be noteworthy - I, for one, haven’t thought much about the periodic table - you know, whether thallium has more interesting properties than polonium or something. But hydrogen is special: out of all the little nuts and bolts that help keep the world spinning, this little bugger is definitely in the running for top ten.

So, the reason (or a reason) hydrogen is extremely important = hydrogen bonding. When I first studied this type of molecular interaction, my teachers all taught me that it was a very weak force. I dismissed hydrogen bonding as unimportant, and certainly not as interesting as ionic bonding, in which atoms have a straight up + or - charge, and are attracted to each other because of those opposite charges and generally form pretty-colored crystals. And covalent bonding, in which the atoms actually have physical electron bridges to each other: this bonding interaction is extremely strong.

But no, hydrogen bonding is this puny polar interaction of slightly positively coated hydrogens with slightly negative atoms (usually oxygen). Oxygen is a pessimist - it loves negativity, and sucks negative charge out of the hydrogens onto itself, making O more negative and H positive, such as in the water molecule H2O.

But I have so far only described why I had considered hydrogen bonding unimpressive - here comes the (hopefully) more interesting part. Hydrogen bonding is the reason water exists and allows this planet to be habitable. Without the millions of little interactions of hydrogen, a horrible oxymoron would be true: water would essentially be dry. It would evaporate fast, boiling at a low temperature. Since much energy has to be invested into water to disrupt the hydrogen bonding interactions and free the molecules from liquid form to become a vapor, water has the really weird ability to retain heat (comparable molecules have far lower boiling points) - this personality trait of water both keeps the temperature of earth fairly even, and regulates the internal temperature of our bodies, preventing our cells from exploding.



Hydrogen bonding, this weak little attraction between polar atoms is in fact an incredibly powerful and quite important force. It finds its strength in numbers. If I tied your hands with a piece of sewing thread, you would easily free yourself, but if I tied your hands with 150 pieces of thread, you’d find your bonds much more difficult to escape. The double strands of our DNA helices are held together by thousands of little hydrogen bonds between the groups on each strand; this is why our DNA is so sturdy, and is not easily ripped apart like single-stranded RNA is.

I like to think that hydrogen bonding sort of helps describe democracy - or perhaps less specifically, how people, banding together, can be vitally important to the world. One person might not be able to effect much change by himself, but a gathering of people can affect history, and a whole crescendo of voices can be heard.