Today I was helping my Dad to add chemicals to the pool, in order to stabilise the water and maintain the appropriate levels, to allow us to continue to swim in the pool. I was reading the water analysis report which details the appropriate levels of chemicals and the actual levels in our water, and explains the steps and chemicals that need to be added in order to maintain the pool's water. As I was reading this report I came across the word manganese, which got me to wondering, what is manganese exactly. My first thought was that it should be some sort of language, Chinese, Japanese or Manganese, perhaps spoken by the inhabitants of Manga. I realised that in the context it was used and that my parents pool wouldn't have any knowledge of other languages, this alternative was unlikely. Not to mention the fact that even though I don't know a great deal about geography, I am fairly certain there is no country called Manga.
Then I decided that the best course of action would be, as is often the case, to Google it! It turns out that manganese is a chemical element (which makes sense that it would be present in a report about chemical levels in the pool's water) and is a metal used in stainless steal. Considering our pool is not made of stainless steal, this didn't make sense, so I read further. It turns out, it is also a name that is applied to various black minerals, such as pyrolusite, and pyrolusite is used in the production of chlorine. My parents pool is a salt chlorinated pool, so the presence of chlorine explains why manganese levels would be tested in the pools water. Once again I have learnt something new, and the world makes sense again (not that it didn't before, it is just that I understand that sense now).
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