Question:
Common crystals in life.?
anonymous
2012-07-04 13:35:09 UTC
I need to know, for school, what are some common crystals that you can find around the house. stuff like salt and snowflakes.
Four answers:
Hondaman
2012-07-04 13:36:22 UTC
Crystal meth, if you're from Manchester.
Virginia
2012-07-05 09:28:26 UTC
Metals do have a microcrystalline structure, but technically, if they are refined, their crystal structure has been deformed.



If you have an old-fashioned crystal radio, there is a semiconducting metal ore crystal in that. Fool's gold is a sparkly, golden-colored rock that is actually a form of iron. That's a crystal. You have liquid crystals in your iPhone, computer screen, and digital watches.



Look in your jewelry and beads. Semiprecious stones such as sodalite or tiger eye quartz are crystals. A popular precious stone is tanzanite.



If you have an electric cigarette lighter or gas grill, there is a piezoelectric crystal there. These can be found in antennae like in your cell phone, too.



The graphite in your pencil is a crystal. It is a sheet of crystal carbon in its pure form. Like another poster said, a diamond is another form of carbon crystal.



Ammonia will crystallize if it dries out, much like sugar will. Don't eat it, though. There are science kits where you can grow your own rock garden, and the rocks are like stalagmites and stalactites. These are created with ammonia crystals.



Granite is made of 3 kinds of crystal in one rock. So is gneiss. Quartz is one of those crystals, and you can often see people wearing quartz points as jewelry. The other two are mica, which in pure form comes in sheets (it was once used for windows in Russia), and feldspar, which comes in long thin crystals, like fat needles. Granite and gneiss are used to make countertops, sometimes, and flooring. Some expensive buildings are faced with granite and gneiss, and many grave monuments are made of granite.



I remember I was at a convention for Amateur Radio Operators, and someone had on display a huge crystal--about 7 inches diameter--of galena, which looked like stacks of chrome-colored cubes. This is a semiconductor metal crystal, and could be used to pick up radio signals, if hooked up right.



A geode is a quartz crystal that grew inside a round rock covering.

I have included a page on the minerals found in toothpaste. They include silica crystals, which is found in sand in river beds (the Ohio River, e.g.); feldspar, which is part of granite; fluorspar, which is mined in Cairo, Illinois; and titanium dioxide. However, these are reduced to very tiny particles before used in toothpaste, so the original, large crystal structure is gone. However, until it is chemically changed or dissolved, it still retains its crystal structure. So I include them here.
Gary H
2012-07-04 21:49:15 UTC
All metals are crystals. Most metals are made up of many very small crystals (very few metals are used in the form of single crystals but some are) so your silverware, kitchen knives, brass door knobs, stainless steel sink, etc are crystalline. Every computer chip in your pc, laptop, iPad, notebook, cell phone, smart phone, GPS, DVD player, cable box, gameboy, Xbox, microwave oven, etc is constructed on a single crystal wafer of Si. Most rocks are crystalline, again, made up of many small crystals. The ice cubes in your freezer are crystalline. That is just a few examples.
R
2012-07-05 03:20:01 UTC
sugar is another

plus the ring on your moms hand


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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