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It Is Written Canada

Designed With Purpose

Chris Holland

Water

It’s All Just a Bunch of Gas

It’s All About the Genes

God's book, the Bible, still relevant in today's complex world.

It is written, sharing messages of hope around the world.

Thank you so much for watching It Is Written.

We are in the midst of a series designed with purpose.

And today we're gonna take further look at this issue of design, and we're going to look at nitrogen.

Now before you say nitrogen, that doesn't sound very exciting.

You are gonna be thrilled with the conversation today because nitrogen is an essential part of the proteins that we are made of as well as our DNA.

And we're going to look at why the role of nitrogen in the atmosphere is so important and how it is taken from the atmosphere to be used in biological molecules.

To help us with this discussion and its implication On our faith, I want to welcome again Dr.

Yes, and I'm sure glad you're here because if I was gonna have a discussion on nitrogen, that would be a very, very short discussion, Dr.

Standish, you have a PhD in environmental biology and public policy.

You are the senior scientist for the Geoscience Research Institute.

Standish, what are you doing on a daily basis in this world of biology and its implications on faith?

Well, there are lots of things that we do at the Geoscience Research Institute.

1 of the things that I enjoy doing is actually working on documentary films that help to explain design in the natural world.

It's a little bit outside of the normal activities of a scientist, but trying to get both the facts straight, but also convey the amazing information that we know about our world.

Obviously, I'm particularly interested in the environment and how ecology works in such a way that life can exist.

So If I was to tell you this is what I do on such and such a day in my office, I'm afraid I couldn't tell you because I'm not a prophet.

It's something different every day, but this media work is certainly enjoyable.

Standish, if someone wanted to find out more about some of the documentaries that you're working on Some of the work of the Geoscience Research Institute, where would they go to find out about this information?

Well, actually I'd point them to 2 different web pages.

First of all, there is the Geoscience Research Institute web page, which is g-r-i-s-d-a dot o-r-g, grizzda dot org.

No space, just I-l-l-u-s-t-r-a-m-e-d-i-a dot com.

And that's where you'll see Another 1 is illustramedia.com.

No space, just I-L-L-U-S-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-A.com.

And that's where you'll see some of the documentaries that I've had the privilege of working on, and others that have also been produced by Illustra Media, they are fantastic.

Fascinating, and all of those videos having to do with design and creation in the world of nature, seeing how God is working, seeing, using the terminology that we've used in some of our previous shows, seeing the plan, which points to the planner, that planner being Jesus Christ himself.

Now, today we're going to have a little bit of a conversation about nitrogen.

And so maybe let's just start right there and make it really basic to kick off with.

Nitrogen is the most exciting element out there.

And I know that that's an extreme statement.

Yes, I'm wondering if we might have some folks ready to argue with you.

That's right, there may be people who disagree with me, but they are people who had no fun in high school.

Nitrogen is, you know, an atom that you find in many different kinds of explosives.

These are explosives that people are familiar with.

It's the nitrogen in there that is Contributing that huge amount of energy that's released when these explosives explode So that it's it's really an exciting element and yet it exists in our atmosphere as probably the most boring molecule imaginable.

2 nitrogen atoms joined together to make something called N2, nitrogen gas.

It's really, really important that it's there.

Well, and that's what I, now, so you said, first you said nitrogen was exciting, but now you're saying nitrogen is boring.

And so if nitrogen's that boring, what would happen if we just replaced all the nitrogen in our atmosphere with oxygen, which seems a whole lot more useful.

Well, things would get a lot more exciting, let's put it that way, if you did that.

What that means is it doesn't really react with anything.

We know that because when we burn things up, it's using up oxygen, it's the oxygen that's oxidizing whatever it is that's burning away there.

So, if you took out the nitrogen and replaced it with oxygen, what you would have is an awful lot more burning.

And in fact, this experiment has been done accidentally.

Actually, apparently quite a few times over the years.

My father was a was a doctor and back in the olden days If a patient had trouble breathing, 1 of the things that they would do is put them inside an oxygen tent This was basically a cover and they raised the amount of oxygen inside that tent, which was important for the patient because they needed more oxygen and they were having trouble getting oxygen into their body.

However, if that patient happened to light up a cigarette inside the oxygen tent, it was a conflagration.

And my understanding is that my father was not the only doctor who had a patient do that.

But yes, because the cigarette, instead of burning slowly as it does in our normal 80% nitrogen atmosphere, Would burn like an inferno for a very short period of time inside the oxygen enriched atmosphere.

So it's very important that we have some kind of inert gas that takes up most of the atmosphere.

Otherwise, we simply would not be able to control fires.

Okay, so maybe help me a little bit here.

So, nitrogen gas in particular is very important in its role in the atmosphere, and nitrogen is important to life, but if it's inert, why is it found all over in explosives and Why is it so exciting, so to speak, when it's not a gas?

The secret lies in the triple bond that exists between 2 nitrogen atoms when they go together and form the nitrogen gas that we see in the atmosphere.

So to separate nitrogen N2 into individual nitrogen atoms, you have to put in a huge amount of energy to break those 3 bonds apart.

You can have a fire in nitrogen and the nitrogen won't make any difference in that situation.

But if you take nitrogen apart, you put the energy in, right, to split it apart, what's going to happen if you put it back together again?

All of that energy that was put in to pull it apart is going to be released as you reform that triple bond.

And That's how explosives that contain nitrogen work, which is basically most explosives that people work with.

The nitrogen on trinitrotoluene is held apart on this organic molecule called toluene.

If you break that molecule so that the nitrogens can get back together again, boom, they release all that energy as they reform the triple bond and become nitrogen gas again.

And so you've got all this nitrogen, all this energy, and that is being released when you're putting it back together.

Series

Designed With Purpose

It’s All Just a Bunch of Gas

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Where Am I From?

Where Am I From?- Part 3

29m

How Old is Old?

How Old is Old?- Part 3

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How Old is Old?

How Old is Old?- Part 1

29m

Darwinism On Trial

29m

Without Compromise

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Designed With Purpose

Water

29m

Designed With Purpose

It’s All About the Genes

29m

Depression, A Way Out

What Is Depression?

29m

Beyond Questions

What Is True Power?

29m

How Old is Old?

How Old is Old?- Part 2

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The Beatitudes of Revelation

The Beatitudes of Revelation- When the Judged Are Judges

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Life To It's Fullest

The Right Focus

24m

Sound Doctrine