(unfortunately at the moment I do not remember the difference between 'ide' and 'ate'
Hi, Terry. Don’t know if this thread has a lot of general interest -
I’m interested in everything…The website I had is a calculator of
volume and other things that I thought might be of some interest.
“ite” and “ate” are oxygen containing, “ide” is just the element, as
in sodium chloride, NaCl, and sodium chlorate, NaClO3. All of which
is beside the point, but good to know. The magnets are not Nd boride,
they are more like an alloy containing Nd, iron and boron. Perhaps a
boride forms, too, though - I don’t know. Nd is an irritant to eyes
and skin, and yes it should be avoided, but no, it’s not deadly. My
comment is only that the biggest problem of breaking the plating is
oxidation, which falls away leaving fresh metal, but that’s not to
say that one should inhale the powder, either. Rare earth magnets are
the reason we have MRI and high powered headphones and tiny speakers
that pump out sound. They are also much used in high-end DC motors
and you have them in the hard drive of your computer, among many
other things. And as another pointed out, swallowing one is a very
bad thing to do - swallowing two is much more than twice as bad.