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Potassium   /pətˈæsiəm/   Listen
Potassium

noun
1.
A light soft silver-white metallic element of the alkali metal group; oxidizes rapidly in air and reacts violently with water; is abundant in nature in combined forms occurring in sea water and in carnallite and kainite and sylvite.  Synonyms: atomic number 19, K.



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"Potassium" Quotes from Famous Books



... which seems to make phosphorus, iodine, bromine, and certain other substances: and as for hydrogen—I know as little about it. I don't know but what all the metals, gold, silver, iron, tin, sodium, potassium, and so forth, are not different forms of hydrogen, or of something else which is the parent of hydrogen. In fact, I know but very little about the matter; except this, that I do know very little; and that the more I experiment, and the more I analyse, ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... a great deal of progress had been made. For the steam engines of Henry Giffard, and the muscular force of Dupuy de Lome, electric motors had gradually been substituted. The batteries of bichromate of potassium of the Tissandier brothers had given a speed of four yards a second. The dynamo-electric machines of Captain Krebs and Renard had developed a force of twelve horsepower and yielded a speed of six and a ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... I have just come from consulting my medical man, for I can no longer get any sleep. He found that my pulse was high, my eyes dilated, my nerves highly strung, but no alarming symptoms. I must have a course of shower baths and of bromide of potassium. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... be beside the mark. We really cannot plead such inexperience of right and wrong, such ignorance of moral safety and moral danger, as would furnish a true parallel between playing with temptation and playing with cyanide of potassium. In setting before us "life and good, and death and evil," God has as distinctly placed within our hearts the moral intuition which, says, "Therefore choose life." But why, the questioner proceeds, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... are not at all necessary for the postulation of wildly variant life forms. Earth itself was prolific in its variations; Earthlike planets were equally inventive. Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, plus varying proportions of phosphorus, potassium, iodine, nitrogen, sulfur, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, and strontium, plus a smattering of trace elements, seem to be able to cook up all kinds of life under the strangest ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett

... shown that living bodies contain comparatively few elements, but these are combined into extraordinarily complex compounds. The following elements appear to be essential to all living bodies: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, potassium. Besides these there are several others usually present, but not apparently essential to all organisms. These include phosphorus, iron, calcium, sodium, ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell

... illustrations for this specific action of Koch's remedy for lupus (ringworm). So for instance a syphilitic ulcer on the thigh may be cured in a few days with iodide of potassium. In a similar manner a morbidly enlarged spleen may be reduced to the normal size ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum

... ordinary alcohol and sulphuric acid, which gives rise to acetic ester or ethyl acetate, recognized by its fragrant odour; or by heating with arsenious oxide, which forms the pungent and poisonous cacodyl oxide. It is a monobasic acid, forming one normal and two acid potassium salts, and basic salts with iron, aluminium, lead and copper. Ferrous and ferric acetates are used as mordants; normal lead acetate is known in commerce as sugar of lead (q.v.); basic copper acetates are ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... during exposure, otherwise the darkening would be very slight. I used this paper for a while, but found it rather slow. The tannin also turned brown on keeping for a week or so. I then made some more, substituting for tannin potassium nitrite (not nitrate), which is colorless. This was an improvement, but still ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... patent on the 31st of July for an improved method of "Making Pot and Pearl Ashes." The world knows nothing of this Samuel Hopkins, but the potash industry, which was evidently on his mind, was quite important in his day. Potash, that is, crude potassium carbonate, useful in making soap and in the manufacture of glass, was made by leaching wood ashes and boiling down the lye. To produce a ton of potash, the trees on an acre of ground would be cut down and burned, the ashes leached, and ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... girl who dropped the sulphuric acid into the something of potassium? I nearly made a great discovery then, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... of silver, the stain of which may be removed by first soaking in a solution of common salt, and afterward washing with ammonia. Or use solution of ten grains of cyanide of potassium and five grains of iodine to one ounce of water, or a solution of eight parts each bichloride of mercury and chloride of ammonium in one hundred and ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... high, nor too low. Suitable and sufficient nutrient material also for the ferment germ must be present; that is a proper proportion of nitrogenous matter, together with certain inorganic salts, which may be added in the form of a little ammonium phosphate and potassium tartrate. ...
— The Production of Vinegar from Honey • Gerard W Bancks

... used in these devices are not particularly new, consisting essentially of a combustible powder and chemical salts which make the flame luminous and give it color when desired. Among the ingredients are barium nitrate, potassium perchlorate, powdered aluminum, powdered magnesium, potassium nitrate, and sulphur. One of the simplest mixtures used by the ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... evenings. There were frequent small quarrels, with reconciliations more or less sincere, which also afforded distraction. After one the captain let off a rocket, also one of Holmes's patent "flare-ups." This is a contrivance for saving life during the dark. It consists of a box filled with potassium, which is pierced at both ends and thrown into the sea fastened to a life-buoy. In contact with the water the metal ignites, and for about half-an-hour sheds a radiance for a long way. It is visible for miles off. If a man falls overboard he knows ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... years old. I like to read YOUNG PEOPLE. The Post-office Box letters are nice. Katie R. P. says she collects insects. So does my papa. He puts lumps of cyanide of potassium, bought at the druggist's, in a bottle, and mixes plaster of Paris with water until it is like dough, and then pours it over the potassium. When it dries, the bottle is ready for use. Five cents' worth lasts a season, and is cheaper than ether, ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... rubbing his eyes. 'I guess I must have been out of my head. Too much whisky!' Then he says: 'Put me to bed, will you, Bandy? I feel all gone in.' Well, I put him to bed and went out to get some bromide of potassium; he said that made him sleep and kept his nerves steady. Coming back, I met a bell-boy just outside of Van's door, and told him to ask the hotel doctor to come up. You see, I had not opened the door of the room yet, and while I was talking to the bell-boy ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... of mineral known as feldspar. The particular feldspar that furnishes most of the moonstone is orthoclase, a silicate of potassium and aluminum. Another feldspar sometimes seen as a semi-precious stone is Labradorite. Amazonite, also, is a feldspar. Sunstone is a feldspar which includes tiny flakes or ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... valuable metal, present in clay, bauxite, and a variety of other mineral substances, is electrolytically deposited from a bath of alumina obtained by dissolving bauxite either in potassium fluoride or in cryolite. Aluminium is now coming into extended use in the construction of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... Mary, and thou lovest me— Our mutual flame is like th' affinity That doth exist between two simple bodies: I am Potassium to thine Oxygen. 'Tis little that the holy marriage vow Shall shortly make us one. That unity Is, after all, but metaphysical O, would that I, my Mary, were an acid, A living acid; thou an alkali Endow'd ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... materials that produce flourishment are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, sulphur, calcium, iron and magnesium; protoplasm contains everything; chemists have not been able to determine and classify protoplasm. ...
— ABC's of Science • Charles Oliver

... lead pipe and use it as a funnel to introduce about 1-1/2 ounces of sulphite of potassium into any outside holes tenanted by rats. Not to be used in dwellings. To get rid of mice use tartar emetic mingled with any favorite food; they will eat, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... to join Rover Jack in his jags; and it was a saying of the pair that the Erie County Pen was the only place where a man could get "slopped" and not be arrested. I never knew, but I was told that bromide of potassium, gained in devious ways from the dispensary, was the dope they used. But I do know, whatever their dope was, that they got good and ...
— The Road • Jack London

... put some pure tartrate of lime, in the form of a granulated, crystalline powder, into pure water, together with some sulphate of ammonia and phosphates of potassium and magnesium, in very small proportions, a spontaneous fermentation will take place in the deposit in the course of a few days, although no germs of ferment have been added. A living, organized ferment, of the vibrionic ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... inventing the miner's safety lamp, with which his name will be forever associated, he made valuable experiments in photography; discovered that the causes of chemical and electrical attraction are identical; produced potassium and sodium by the electric current; proved the transformation of energy into heat; formulated a theory of the properties of particles of matter (or atoms); and made remarkable experiments which ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... two or three drams; Ginger, two or three drams, according to the size of the animal. Place in gelatin capsule and give with capsule gun. This physic removes the irritant from the intestines and prevents its absorption into the blood. Also administer the following: Bromide of Potassium, twelve ounces; Nitrate of Potash, four ounces; Iodide of Potash, three ounces. Make into twenty-four capsules and give ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... excitement that he must cure, and as there are many remedies for insomnia, he tried those which, it seemed to him, were suitable to his case; but bromide of potassium, in spite of its hypnotic properties, produced no more effect than the over-working of the brain and body. When he realized this he replaced it with chloral; but chloral, which should create a desire to sleep, after several days had ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... for the calotype, he gave a formula for the addition of bromide of potassium to the iodide of potassium, but did not speak with much certainty as to the proportions. Will he kindly say whether he has made farther trials; and if so, whether they confirm the proportions given by him, or have led him to adopt any change in this respect? and will he likewise say whether ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various

... other essential elements of plant food, and these require special consideration in connection with permanent soil fertility. They are potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus and nitrogen. There are also five important points to be kept in mind in relation to each of these elements: (1) the soil's supply, (2) the crop requirements, (3) the loss by leaching, (4) the methods ...
— The Farm That Won't Wear Out • Cyril G. Hopkins

... catching the insects, made by sewing a bag of cheese-cloth to a stout ring one foot in diameter, which is fastened to a broom handle; (2) a cyanide bottle for killing the insects, prepared by pouring some soft plaster-paris over a few lumps of potassium cyanide (three pieces, each of the size of a pea) in a wide-mouthed bottle. When the plaster has set, keep the bottle tightly corked to retain the poisonous gases. (3) Pins to mount the specimens. Entomological pins, Nos. 2, 3, and 4, are the best for general ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... been most universally adopted by the several states, is the law requiring the manufacturer and dealer in commercial fertilizers to guarantee the percentage of the so-called essential fertilizing elements—nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium—contained in each bag of fertilizer offered for sale. Subsequent control laws have been modeled more or less closely after this law. Hence a description of the operation and execution of ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... (See fig. 88.) It must, however, be remembered that there are again specific poisons which may affect one kind of tissue and not others. Poisons in general may be regarded as extreme cases of depressants. As an example of those which produce moderate physiological depression, potassium bromide may be mentioned, and this also diminishes electric response. There are other chemical reagents, on the other hand, which produce the opposite effect of increasing the excitability and causing a ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... chair and hastily collected the necessaries for the journey. The little board and the lamp I put in my overcoat pocket; I overhauled the emergency bag and added to its usual contents a bottle of permanganate of potassium which I thought I might require. Then I tucked the evening paper under my arm and ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... most serious threat is cesium-137, a gamma emitter with a half-life of 30 years. It is a major source of radiation in nuclear fallout, and since it parallels potassium chemistry, it is readily taken into the blood of animals and men and may be incorporated ...
— Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives • United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

... impudence of which remark needs no comment. The planners of the crime had indeed Intended to bury their traces, as they supplied the wretched boys each with a tube of cyanide of potassium, which he was to take immediately after doing the deed. An Instruction they ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... 20 grams of hydrochloric acid; 10 grams of nitric acid; the liquid thus composed is placed over a moderate fire, and stirred constantly until the gold passes into the state of chlorine; it is then allowed to cool. A second liquid is formed by dissolving 60 grams of cyanide of potassium in 80 grams of distilled waters; the two liquids are mixed together in a decanter and stirred for 20 minutes, and then filtered. Finally 100 grams of whiting, dry and sifted, are mixed with 5 grams of pulverised supertartrate of potass; this new powder is dissolved in a portion of the above described ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... of me some of the finest destructive agents you could wish to light upon—carbon-monoxide, chlorine-trioxide, mercuric-oxide, conine, potassamide, potassium-carboxide, cyanogen—when Edwards entered. I was wearing a mask of my own invention, a thing that covered ears and head and everything, something like a diver's helmet—I was dealing with gases a sniff of which meant death; only a ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... story made an immediate impression, and the remote little world by the Golden Gate was shaken into startled and enquiring astonishment. Wherever people met, The Case of Summerfield was on men's tongues. Was Caxton's contention possible? Was it true that, by the use of potassium, water could be set on fire, and that any one possessing this baneful secret could destroy the world? The plausibility with which the idea was presented, the bare directness of the style, added to its convincing power. It sounded ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes



Words linked to "Potassium" :   diclofenac potassium, carnallite, kainite, langbeinite, metallic element, potassium hydroxide, seawater, brine, metal, saltwater, sylvite, sylvine



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