“What Scott’s men (perhaps) found out the hard way is that an element’s atom can spontaneously shift from a weak crystal to a strong one, or vice versa. Usually it takes extreme conditions to promote rearrangement…. The condition is sometimes called tin leprosy because it burrows deep inside like a disease.”
There once was a man who dreamed of setting foot on Antarctica. He prepared, prepared and prepared. He brought the warmest clothes and the best technology there was; Nothing was standing in his was. Once he got to Antarctica, his research started. Everything went as planned. Wanting to see more, him and his crew decided to go to the south pole. They wanted to be the first to reached the south pole. As the journey continued, they pushed through the cold, the snow and the blizzard.The only thing on their mind was South Pole. When they got there, a flag from Norway was already standing. On their way back, the weather severely changed. Many of the men were having a hard time staying up. Many got frostbites on their feet, their food went bad and nothing seemed to go right. The crew was lost. They couldn’t find their camp. They tried and tried but the lack of food and the continuous frostbites slowed them down. They soon died coming back to their camp.
This is the story of Robert Falcon Scott and his crew. They were the one to organize this expedition and die while doing it. Yet, many things are uncertain on what truly happened. Many blame tin metal.
But how can an ordinary tin metal lead to the death of a person? Well, tin itself is affected by a disease called Tin Leprosy (aka tin pest). It is seen as a disease because as soon as one part of the tin changes, everything around it will have been changed as well. Spreading like a disease. Tin Pest is when Tin, under severe cold conditions, changes allotropes. Allotropes are the different types of solids an element can be made into. For example, Carbon can become graphite, diamond, or charcoal.
Under 13.2 degrees celsius, tin changes from a metallic beta form to a grayish powder. Once the process starts, the reaction speeds up until all the tin is effected and turned into the gray tin. The volume of tin increases by about 25% but the gray tin is very brittle. This may have been the reason that Robert Scott didn’t make it back to his camp. Because of the Tin Pest, the buttons on their jackets, any tin technology, or tin cans may have turned into powder and would have easily destroyed. This would result in a harder way to keep warm, less accessible food, and few available technology.
The element tin was indeed the reason that Robert Falcon Scott died in Antarctica. The cold temperatures made tin turn to a grayish powder instead of a solid metal. Any tin the crew carried - their food, technology, and even the buttons on their jackets - was turned into powder. As a result, their trip was even harder than before. Soon enough, they became weak and couldn’t go any further.
