Nitrous Oxide
5” x 7”
Acrylic on canvas
2010
$75
Nitrous oxide was the first surgical anaesthetic known, predating diethyl ether by two years, and its ability to keep patients conscious but calm under a dental drill, and groggy enough to receive a root canal without flinching revolutionized dental medicine. At last, it was not only possible to do complex dental surgery, but to laugh about it afterward.
Despite its long history as a totally safe anaesthetic, nitrous oxide is highly reactive. The nitrogen atoms in N2O are very keen to shed the oxygen they are bonded to and form N2, so nitrous oxide is a very powerful oxidizer, on par with pure molecular oxygen — but much safer to store and transport, so N2O is very often used as a rocket fuel and an additive to gasoline in race cars when ordinary air is insufficiently reactive.
Most familiarly, nitrous oxide is used as a propellant in canned whipped cream. Under pressure, huge amounts of N2O dissolve in the cream. When the cream is released, nitrous oxide billows out of solution, puffing the cream into a far lighter foam than can be achieved through ordinary whipping.
Joseph Priestley first produced nitrous oxide by heating iron filings soaked in nitric acid, and noted in 1772, “I have now discovered an air five or six times as good as common air.” In Priestley’s weird jargon, “good” refers to N2O’s oxidizing powers. But he might as well have been referring to its modern uses. In case after case, nitrous oxide does what air does, only much better.
These molecules are rendered as space-filling models, in a natural, low-energy conformation, and displayed from an angle that shows off as much of their structure as possible. The atoms are color-coded, with oxygen being red, and nitrogen blue. They are painted in artist-quality acrylics, on gessoed canvas
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