Saturday, September 9, 2017

kanji - Etymology of 「消毒」


I was at the gym and they have these bottles of disinfectant to clean after you've used the equipment, I started thinking about the kanji's and started wondering why the 2nd kanji used is 「毒」 (poison).


Why the kanji for poison? Why not use something like 「消」 and 「菌」? Curious...


(I do know there's also 殺菌.)




No comments:

Post a Comment

periodic trends - Comparing radii in lithium, beryllium, magnesium, aluminium and sodium ions

Apparently the of last four, $\ce{Mg^2+}$ is closest in radius to $\ce{Li+}$. Is this true, and if so, why would a whole larger shell ($\ce{...