The final product Essay Example

The final product Paper Abstract: In this experiment three Werner complexes, hexaamminecobalt(III) chloride, pentaamminechlorocobalt(III) chloride and hexaamminenickel(II) chloride were synthesized so their structural formula could be examined through magnetic susceptibility, electronic conductance measurements and the analysis of free chloride in the two cobalt complexes through titrations of silver nitrate. Cobalt (III) coordination compounds usually only form in low spin, octahedral complexes where the all t2g are paired leaving all the eg unpaired; whereas nickel(II) complexes are usually formed in the high spin state1. Through these analytical methods, it was found that: hexaamminecobalt(III) chloride has three free chloride ions to form the complex [Co(NH3)6]Cl3, in the low-spin state. Pentaamminechlorocobalt(III) chloride and hexaamminenickel(II) chloride both have two free chlorine ions to form the complexes [Co(NH3)5Cl]Cl2 and [Ni(NH3)6]Cl2 respectively. As expected, pentaamminechlorocobalt(III) chloride has a low spin electron arrangement, and hexaamminenickel(II) chloride is in a high spin state. Introduction: Alfred Werner was the first to discover the structure for coordination compound in 1893, thus they were given the name Werner Complexes. For this research he was given the Nobel Prize in 1913. Werner complexes are complex ions that contain a transition metal in the center, which is surrounded by anionic or neutral ligands. 2 The metal in this case acts as a Lewis acid (electron pair accepting) and the anionic ligands act as a Lewis base (electron pair donating). Using pentaamminechlorocobalt(III) chloride, Co(NH3)3Cl3, as an example, there are four possible structures depending on how the ligands are arranged. We will write a custom essay sample on The final product specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The final product specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The final product specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer [Co(NH3)3Cl3] + 3NH3 In this case, all the chlorine anions are bound directly to the cobalt metal, and three neutral amine molecules are present somewhere else in the crystal lattice [Co(NH3)4Cl2]+ + Cl- + 2NH3 Here, two chlorines are directly bound to the cobalt metal with two neutral non boding amine molecules. There is also one free chlorine anion to balance the charge of the cobalt complex. [Co(NH3)5Cl]2+ + 2Cl- + NH3 The third possible arrangement is where there is one chlorine attached to the central cobalt with a single amine molecule elsewhere in the lattice. Again, there are two free chloride ions to balance the charge [Co(NH3)5]3+ + 3Cl- Finally, the cobalt complex can be arranged with just the amine ligands directly bound to it in a square pyramidal geometry instead of a more stable octahedral geometry seen in the other three complexes. This leaves the three chlorine anions non-bonded, and counterbalancing the 3+ charge from the complex. To find the actual arrangement and geometry of the three complexes, conductance measurements, magnetic susceptibility and free chloride ions through titrations can be measured and analyzed. Electronic conductance measurements helps determine the amount of chloride ions not attached to the metal. This is possible because when dissolving a salt in water, the molecule separates into cations and anions, each which can conduct electricity. The conductance measured can be compared to a literature reference of how many total ions correspond to the value. With this, logically dividing the charges between the cations and anions present will help determine the overall structure of the molecule. The second technique for determining the amount of ions present in a Werner complex is magnetic susceptibility. With finding the magnetic susceptibility using a magnetic susceptibility of a compound, one can calculate whether the compound is paramagnetic or diamagnetic. If the mass magnetic susceptibility, ? g, is negative, then the compound is diamagnetic; however, if ? g is positive, then the compound is paramagnetic. The apparatus used for this experiment is a Evans/Johnson Mathey Magnetic Susceptibility Balance. The last technique used was titrating a sample with silver nitrate. Since the three samples contain chloride ions, titrating it with silver nitrate would precipitate silver chloride, which is very insoluble. Based on the volume of silver nitrate used to reach the end point, one can calculate the amount of silver chloride precipitated. The amount of silver chloride precipitated is also the amount of free chloride ions in the mixture. Comparing the ratio of moles of silver nitrate used to the moles of analyte in the mixture will show the amount of non-bonding chlorine present. Procedure and observations: Synthesis of hexaamminecobalt(III) chloride: The synthesis was started by adding cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate(4. 690g) and ammonium chloride (2.946g) to water(5mL) which formed a purple solution from the original red/pink powder. This solution was heated up and turned dark blue once it was all dissolved. Activating charcoal was then added as a catalyst the solution was then black with a slight blue tint. Afterwards, concentrated ammonia (9. 8mL) was added to the mixture. This created a very dark red solution, but upon setting, the color eventually faded to yellow with a bit of red in it. With this, the solution was then cooled in a tab water bath and hydrogen peroxide (10. 0mL, 6%) was added and heated to 65 degrees Celsius for 17 minutes. To crystallize, the solution was then places in another tap water bath, proceeded by an ice water bath. The brown crystals were then filtered by vacuum filtration and transferred to another beaker containing concentrated hydrochloric acid (2. 1mL) and water (41. 0mL). After all the crystals were dissolved, they were filtered by gravity filtration and washed with water (1. 7mL). The red/gold filtrate was collected, and another portion of concentrated hydrochloric acid(5. 2mL) was added. The filtrate was then cooled on ice to crystallize once more. Upon cooling, the solution turned bright orange. The sides of the erlenmeyer flask had to be scratched vigorously to help induce the production of crystals. Finally, the crystals were filtered once more by vacuum filtration, and dried between two pieces of large filter paper. The final product were bright orange crystals(0. 123g) at a 2. 36% yield. Synthesis of pentaamminechlorocobalt(III) chloride: To start the synthesis, solid ammonium chloride (7. 560g) was added to a beaker containing ammonia (44. 6mL, 14M). While stirring, finely powdered cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate (7. 465g) was slowly added.

The forgotten soldier essays

The forgotten soldier essays The hardships that Guy Sajer and his comrades must face start from the very beginning. It begins with Guy simply trying to find shelter from the rain as they wait for a train. At the time he had no idea these were going to be some of the most pleasant conditions he would come across during his journey. Once we he was on the train he had no choice but to travel in an open boxcar and the rain turned into snow with a biting wind. When he finally reached Minsk conditions got much worse. He makes an account of one night when the mercury dropped to five degrees below zero, my hands and feet felt the cold so sharply that it sometimes seemed as if the pain were stabbing me in the heart, (24). However he did not realize that in Minsk it could actually get much worse, On that day the temperature fell to thirty-five degrees below zero, and I thought I would sure die. Nothing could warm us. We urinated into our numbed hands to warm them, and, hopefully to cauterize the gaping cracks in o ur fingers. Each movement of my fingers opened and closed deep crevices that oozed with blood. He said the pain was so great it made him sick to his stomach and he broke down into tears (37). When he did finally get to sleep it was always cold and on the floor, he would awake numb and stiff. He once had to hold a mans leg while it was being amputated and when it was finished he was holding the unattached leg in his hand. The soldiers were constantly underfed and were given rotten meat that sue to the cold was frozen by the time they went to eat it anyway. At one point during his time in Minsk Sajers toes, turned an ashen gray and he had to receive a painful injection to avoid amputation (62). At one point Sajer comments on one of the grisly aspects of battle, we felt as if we could smell the presence of death-and by this I dont mean the process of decomposition, but the smell that emanates from d...

The impact of Information Technology on a career or profession of your Term Paper - 1

The impact of Information Technology on a career or profession of your choice - Term Paper Example Businesses have become equipped with information management systems that manage the company’s intellectual assets and provide basis for predictive analysis of future sales and consumer behaviors. Medical treatments have become safer, more reliable and quicker due to the integration of technological equipments and procedures. Technology has intervened in the life of modern man to such a great extent that it is almost impossible to imagine life without its presence. Modern technology has also broken the geographical barriers by creating innovative modes of communication. 2. Field of Education The field of education has undergone numerous changes after the introduction of technology. The conventional modes of acquiring education in a classroom setting have transformed into much broader concepts. One of major pitfalls of the conventional concept was the assumption that all students are able to acquire education in the same manner and at the same pace. The instructor used to evalua te the level of comprehension of the students on the basis of feedback from a selected number of prominent students. The slow learners suffered in this process since they were compelled to follow the pace of the fast learners in the classroom sessions. Technological intervention has addressed this drawback and has provided innovative ways to acquire education. ... Multimedia is commonly adapted across schools, colleges and universities for a diverse range of purposes. Reeves defined multimedia as the accumulation of different types of mediums, like sound, text, animation etc, on a single platform that has a greater effect on the users than the platform with only one type of medium (22). Multimedia is used to present lectures in a classroom setting to make the sessions more interactive and interesting. Graphs and diagrams can be displayed on the screens and can be explained in a more detailed manner. Interactive whiteboard is another form of multimedia that is being adapted by educational institutes around the world. It comprises of a computer that is connected with a projector and a touch screen. Painter explained that the projector displays the desired content (from the computer) on the whiteboard that can be controlled with an electronic pen (3). Figure 1: Interactive Whiteboard being used in a primary school (Painter) Impact The use of mult imedia has benefitted the field of education to a great extent. The monotonous lectures have been converted into interactive and interesting sessions due to the integration of multimedia in the programs. Teachers are able to present different types of video clips, animations, graphs, architectures etc. This makes it easier for the students to comprehend different concepts since visual aid is coupled with the knowledge of the instructor. Reeves stated that multimedia tends to kindle more than one sense at one instance therefore it proves to be a better medium to attain attention of the audience (22). Teoh and Neo stated that interactivity of multimedia sessions promotes the interaction between the learner and the instructor (29); this provides an opportunity to the learner to address

Jesus true prayer Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Jesus true prayer - Assignment Example Aside from praying the â€Å"Our Father†, one also follows Jesus’ advice in Matthew 6.6 which states that â€Å"pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly† (Matthew 6, n.d., p. 1). One prays using what one intends to relay to the Father through own words and in a parallel way that a child seeks to communicate to one’s own biological father. One could improve one’s prayer life through observing and practicing Jesus’ advice and recommendation for the true prayer by first acknowledging adoration to God, the Father and the provider and Omnipotent God, who governs one’s path and life. One should recognize that prayer assists in overcoming daily challenges and exemplifies communicating to God in terms of appreciating receiving blessings and graces and acknowledging that we need protection from harm. Also, the message of forgiveness must be ingrained in our daily life as the ethics of reciprocity must be of primary importance as a secret to a happy and peaceful

Significance of Discoveries in Genetics and DNA Essay

Significance of Discoveries in Genetics and DNA - Essay Example The principles and procedures of genetics were first advanced by Gregory Mendel, who performed a series of experiments that pointed the existence of genes. Mendel performed experiments through selective cross breeding of pea plants over generations. He discovered that some traits show in offspring without any blending with parents. For example, an offspring of a cross-pollinated purple flowered and white coloured pea plant did not rise to intermediate colours. The offspring in the first generation were in a ratio of 3:1 and the second-generation self-cross gave rise to a 1:1 ratio. Mendel therefore concluded that inheritance of traits is determined by units that are passed to offspring unchanged. Secondly, that an individual will inherit one unit from each parent for each trait and that the trait does not show up in the first generation, but will eventually in the subsequent generations. According to Mendel, the dominant allele masked the presence of the recessive allele in the F1 generation. His work gave rise to two genetic principles. Firstly, the law of segregation that states that for any trait alleles separate, only one passes fr om the parent to the offspring. Secondly, the principle of independent assortment which states that alleles are passed from the parent to the offspring independent of each other (Bortz, 2014). Following the discovery of Mendelian principles, T.H. Morgan performed experiments on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster because of their different body features that can help distinguish males and females. He observed the colour of their eyes, shape of wings and body shape. The choice of characteristics was distinctive for crossing because of the pronounced phenotypes. Before Mendel’s discoveries, evolutionary scientists like Charles Darwin believed that traits in an organism are selected through natural selection where the fittest organisms survived phasing out the least adaptable species.

Strategies to Produce Thermonuclear Plasmas

Strategies to Produce Thermonuclear Plasmas Elrica Degirmen What is the Joint European Torus and how does it work? The Joint European Torus, or JET, is a physics facility located in the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire. Plasma physicists and engineers there are producing thermonuclear plasmas under magnetic confinement in order to show that fusion energy is a reliable source of energy in the future. It is very difficult to do on earth as in order for nuclear fusion to happen temperatures millions of degrees above the core of the Sun must be achieved as it is impossible to gravitationally confine the plasma (CEA, 2001) which is the way it happens in stars. A plasma is defined as a quasi-neutral ionised gas, and because it is charged, it can be manipulated by electric and magnetic fields (Suplee, 2009). The History of the Joint European Torus JET’s history started in 1970 when the Council of the European Community decided to embark on a fusion research programme and build a European fusion device. After three years in 1973, the designs of JET were being drawn up and in 1977 the Culham site was chosen to build JET and construction work began. It then started operation in 1983 (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, 2012). The 9th of November 1991 is a particularly important date in the history of nuclear fusion as this was when the Preliminary Tritium Experiment â€Å"achieved the world’s first controlled release of fusion power† (ITER Organization, 2014). What is nuclear fusion? Nuclear fusion is what powers the sun and it involves two nuclei fusing together under extreme temperatures and pressures. When this reaction occurs, energy is released from Einstein’s energy-mass equivalence equation This is because the sum of the masses of the individual nucleons before fusing is greater than the sum of the masses of the nuclei when they have fused. This leads to a mass defect and due to the conservation of energy; a loss in mass is compensated through the release of energy. With regards to nuclear fusion, a lot of energy is released, especially when compared with nuclear fission. We can compare the energy outputs of both nuclear processes through the concept of binding energy. Binding energy is the amount of energy needed to either remove each nucleon from each other within the nucleus or the energy needed to fuse the same number of nucleons to form the nucleus of an atom. Looking at the binding energy per nucleon for the elements, we can see which are the most stable elements (they have the highest binding energy per nucleon) and see which processes (fission or fusion) releases the most energy. It should be noted that the mechanism for nuclear fusion in stars is different compared to achieving nuclear fusion on earth. In stars, the hydrogen atoms are fused together due to the extreme pressures as there is such a large quantity of stellar material. An example of one of the main nuclear cycles that take place in stars is the Proton-Proton Chain which happens in stars with the same mass as our Sun or less (The University of Tennessee). The main reaction is the first step where it converts hydrogen and deuterium into helium and emits a gamma ray as follows: (Case Western Reserve University) These pressures, as well as the high temperatures, and the effects of gravitational confinement means that the hydrogen atoms, which would normally repel one another due to their positive charges at the centres of their nuclei, are able to overcome the Coulomb barrier, and therefore the strong force is able to attract these nuclei together releasing vast amounts of energy and producing helium in the first place. The Coulomb barrier is the energy that is needed for the electrical repulsion to be overcome in order for the strong nuclear force to take place in order for the nuclei to fuse together (HyperPhysics). Here on earth, it is impossible to gravitationally confine large amounts of plasma, therefore physicists have developed two main methods for achieving nuclear fusion (for the purposes of civilian energy): inertial confinement and magnetic confinement (CEA, 2001). Another facility, the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California uses inertial confinement and this involves the use of lasers. However, JET is concerned with magnetic confinement and, as the name suggests, it involves magnets with a reactor shaped as a torus or as a hollow doughnut. The Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov first came up with the idea of a tokamak as it was considered the most optimal shape to successfully confine a plasma using magnetic fields. In terms of magnetic confinement, for nuclear fusion to occur (this is called ignition); three main properties of the plasma must fulfil certain conditions. This is named the Lawson criterion after it was first proposed by John D. Lawson in 1955. The Lawson criterion states that the â€Å"triple product† of plasma density, confinement time, and the plasma temperature must fulfil this equation for a deuterium-tritium reaction: (Irvine, 2011) Where is the plasma density, is the plasma temperature and is the confinement time. Although a lot of energy is needed to overcome the Coulomb barrier and initiate the fusion process, the large energy yield is the reason why research at JET and at other institutes is still ongoing (HyperPhysics). The most common fusion reaction to be studied nowadays and the one that physicists at JET are looking into particularly is the deuterium-tritium, or D-T, reaction. Deuterium and tritium are isotopes of hydrogen. It is as follows: (HyperPhysics) Plasma heating Within the tokamak, the plasma current is induced by a transformer. The central iron transformer core acts as the primary winding, and this is situated in the hole of the tokamak reactor, and the plasma acts as the secondary winding. The plasma can act as a secondary winding because it is electrically-charged and therefore acts as a conductor. The alternating current that is supplied to the central magnetic coil induces a changing magnetic field and this is used to control the plasma. This produces a heating effect called Ohmic heating. Thus induced current causes heating which also happens in conventional transformers as well. Neutral-beam injection involves the introducing high-energy atoms into the magnetically-confined plasma when it is already ohmically heated. These atoms are ionised as they pass through the plasma and therefore are also controlled by the magnetic field present. They then become high-energy ions and as a result, they transfer some of their energy to the plasma particles in repeated collisions. This increase in the number of collisions increases the average translational kinetic energy associated with these ions and thus increases the temperature of the plasma overall. Furthermore, radio frequency heating is also used to heat the plasma. This is generated through induction high-frequency oscillating currents in the plasma by external coils. There are parts of the plasma where the energy absorption is high and the frequencies are chosen to match the frequencies of these regions. This is called resonance and it allows large amounts of power to be transferred to the plasma. All of these ways of heating the plasma are important as not one single method can produce the necessary temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, 2012), which is required in magnetic confinement (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, 2012). Confining the plasma The main purpose of the tokamak in JET is to magnetically confine the plasma with the help of the device called a â€Å"tokamak† which is a Russian acronym for a torus-shaped magnetic chamber (European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (Fusion for Energy), 2013). In order to successfully confine the plasma, the magnetic field lines must move around the torus in a helical shape generated by toroidal and poloidal fields. The diagram above is useful in explaining two key concepts in plasma physics: the toroidal field and the poloidal field. The toroidal field is represented by the blue line and it is the magnetic field that travels around the torus in circles. The poloidal field is represented by the red arrow and it travels in circles perpendicular to the toroidal field. Both of these fields differ in the way they are produced as well in their direction of travel. The toroidal field is produced by electromagnets which surround the torus, and the poloidal field is generated as a result of the toroidal electric current that follows inside the plasma with the help of a second set of electromagnets (Wikipedia, 2014). Energy production At the moment, JET can only produce around 70% of the power needed to heat the plasma in the first place (Mlynà ¡Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â€ž ¢, 2007). However, a new tokamak called ITER is being built in Cadarache and developed in order to develop the technologies and obtain the knowledge necessary to built fusion power stations capable of producing more energy out than in (European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (Fusion for Energy), 2013). Energy production from fusion is a promising idea as a fusion reaction, in comparison to the combustion of fossil fuels, is four times more energetic, thus more energy can be produced from very small quantities of deuterium and tritium (ITER Organization, 2014). In practical terms, in order to produce 1000MW of electricity, 2.4 million tonnes of coal would be needed each year for a coal-fired power station, however only 125kg each of deuterium and tritium per year would be needed to produce the same amount of energy (ITER Organization, 2014). The future From the research conducted at JET, it was apparent to physicists that a bigger tokamak must be built in order to break-even and hopefully obtain a greater energy output than input. To reiterate, this tokamak is known as ITER and is currently built in the south of France. Even then, ITER is not being built specifically for energy production and it is only until DEMO will be built that it can be demonstrated to the world that it is possible to harness the power of nuclear fusion on energy. DEMO is expected to be running sometime during the 2030s and an actual fusion power plant to be running by 2050 (EFDA, 2014). However, due to inevitable geopolitical issues and financial constraints, there is every possibility that these dates may be pushed forward into the future. Even so it was in 1905 when Einstein first formulated the mass-energy equivalence relation, it was in 1920 when Eddington first discovered how stars produced energy, it was in 1927 when Langmuir gave â€Å"plasma† its name and thus plasma physics was born (Mlynà ¡Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â€ž ¢, 2007); and there have been many other milestones within plasma physics since then that even if the dates fusion civilian energy is pushed forward by a couple of decades or more it will not mean anything in the long term as man will finally be able to â€Å"learn how to release it and use it for his service† as Eddington said. Irrespective of when the production of fusion energy will occur, JET will have been a cornerstone in the history of fusion energy and plasma physics as experiments at JET have made us closer and closer to ignition. The next step is to build the next series of tokamaks and finally the fusion power plant. Works Cited Case Western Reserve University. (n.d.). The Proton-Proton Chain. Retrieved January 18, 2014, from http://burro.cwru.edu/Academics/Astr221/StarPhys/ppchain.html CEA. (2001). Retrieved January 16, 2014, from http://www-fusion-magnetique.cea.fr/gb/fusion/principes/principes02.htm EFDA. (2014). Fusion. Retrieved January 18, 2014, from http://www.efda.org/fusion/ European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (Fusion for Energy). (2013). Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved January 17, 2014, from http://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/faq/#a7 European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (Fusion for Energy). (2013). What is Fusion? Retrieved January 16, 2014, from http://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/understandingfusion/ HyperPhysics. (n.d.). Coulomb Barrier for Fusion. Retrieved January 18, 2014, from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/coubar.html HyperPhysics. (n.d.). Nuclear Fusion. Retrieved January 17, 2014, from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/fusion.html Irvine, M. (2011). Nuclear Power: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press Inc. ITER Organization. (2014). Fueling the Fusion Reaction. Retrieved January 17, 2014, from http://www.iter.org/sci/fusionfuels ITER Organization. (2014). Progress in Fusion. Retrieved January 16, 2014, from http://www.iter.org/sci/beyonditer Mlynà ¡Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â€ž ¢, J. (2007). Focus On: JET. Prague: Association EURATOM-IPP.CR. Suplee, C. (2009). The Plasma Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The University of Tennessee. (n.d.). The Proton-Proton Chain. Retrieved January 18, 2014, from http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/energy/ppchain.html United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. (2012). JET. Retrieved January 16, 2014, from http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/JET.aspx United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. (2012). The Tokamak. Retrieved January 16, 2014, from http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/Tokamak.aspx Wikipedia. (2014). Tokamak. Retrieved January 16, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak

The Selfishness of Oedipus in Oedipus the King :: Oedipus Rex, Sophocles

"Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race,† as quoted by William E. Gladstone, supports my thought that selfishness is what causes most of our problems in the modern world. Currently, we are living in an era that is filled with much gluttony and selfishness. However, selfishness is a trait that all of us possess, but the amount of selfishness that we have can determine the type of person we are. For instance, parents should always put their children’s needs before their own. Selfish parents would rather buy materialistic items for themselves than anything useful for their children. In Sophocles’s â€Å"Oedipus Rex,† the protagonist is literally blinded by his own arrogance. This attitude begins before he even travels to Thebes, and that is apparent due to the circumstances of his father’s death. Oedipus seals his own fate with his egotistical attitude and he cannot change his destiny after everything is set into motion. During his jo urney on the road to enlightenment, Oedipus’s selfishness causes him to transcend from being completely ignorant of his fate to holding on to the last shreds of denial to having an overwhelming sense of realization. The selfishness that Oedipus possesses causes him to have abundance of ignorance. This combination is what leads to his father’s death. After fleeing Corinth and his foster family, Oedipus gets into a skirmish with an older man. The reason for the fight was because, â€Å"The groom leading the horses forced me off the road at his lord’s command† (1336). Oedipus is filled with a rage after being insulted by the lord and feels the need to act. The two men fight, but Oedipus ends up being too much for the older man, and he kills him. What Oedipus is unaware of is that the man was actually his birth father and by killing him, Oedipus has started on the path of his own destruction. Not only does Oedipus kill his father, but also everyone else, â€Å"I killed them all† (1336). The other men had no part in the scuffle, but in his rage, he did not care who he was killing. As Oedipus becomes king, his selfishness only grows, as does his denial. As the king, he gained the burden of Thebes whenever a problem arose. To find a way to rid his city of the plague, he sent Kreon so that he would have some answers and be able to place the blame on something or someone.