July 22, 2025 • 21 mins
Grab your lab goggles and gloves, because today we’re taking a close look at the periodic table! From the visionary scientist who created it, to a 1980s war over element names, to the very strangest elements on the chart, Will and Mango have nine facts that’ll melt your brain like it’s made of gallium. (You’ll get the joke after you listen.)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Well, what's that mango? So I
don't mean to alarm you, but do you know we're
running out of helium? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I love it when you start an episode by trying
to scare everybody. It's just a great way to kick
things off. But actually, I think I have heard about
this helium shortage, but one thing I didn't really understand
is what the real impact is, Like should I start
hoarding balloons.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Or like, what's the deal? Yeah, so I knew you
would bring up balloons because obviously that's what most people
think about when they hear the word helium. But this light,
odorless gas actually has way more important uses. Like did
you know that about a third of the world's helium
consumption is attributed to hospitals. Oh wow, I didn't know that. Yeah,
that's because it's used cool magnets and things like MRI machines.
(01:02):
And helium is also part of the gas mixture that
inflates car airbags, and it's used in the manufacturing processes
for computer chips and electric vehicle batteries. So global demand
for helium has been expanding faster than a balloon.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
All right, so this is definitely not a joke. But
should we actually be scared about this shortage?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I mean, it's true that we have a supply problem
and we can't artificially create helium, so the only way
to get it is by drilling deep into the ground.
And because it's so light, it's actually difficult to store
without leakage loss. So over the past twenty years we've
had four major helium shortages. But the good news is
that's actually a major incentive to develop products that use
(01:42):
less of the stuff. For example, some hospitals have started
replacing their existing MRI machines with a new low helium model.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
All right, that makes sense. So if you can't get
more of this stuff, you have to find ways to
use less of it, which which I get that. But
it is kind of wild that we have so many
things that rely on this one hard to get gas.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I know, and helium's been part of our lives since
eighteen sixty eight when it was first observed by this
French astrophysicist. His name is Pierre Jansen, and he was
running around the world watching eclipses with this device called
a spectroscope, which is kind of like a fancy prism
that separates light into wavelengths. Early scientists used it to
determine the chemical composition of the sun because as different
(02:22):
gases burn, they give off light. And Jansen was looking
at an eclipse in India actually when he saw this
bright yellow line that didn't match any known elements, and
he immediately reported his discovery to the French Academy of Sciences,
who was like, yeah, someone else saw that too.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh no, I know that had to feel heartbreaking, but
you know what, I'm guessing this actually happens a lot
in science, Like you think you've discovered something and then
you discover there were other discoverers.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, So Jansen ends up sharing the credit for discovering
helium with the English astronomer, this guy in Norman Locke here,
he's the one who came up with a name from
the Greek word helios or sun. And although Jansen and
Lockyer would probably share your concern about the shortage, I
think they'd be psyched that their discovery has improved medical
care and birthday parties. But that's just the first of
(03:10):
nine great stories we're going to tell today. All rip
from the pages of the Periodic Table. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh Hot Ticketer. And there on the other side
of the soundproof glass that's our pal and producer Dylan Fagan.
I knew he wouldn't disappoint today. He's wearing a lab coat,
which I have to say I kind of predicted that one.
And this is, of course, because today's episode is all
about the periodic Table. But what I didn't expect He's
(03:59):
always got some and I'm actually a little bit nervous
about this is he's about to light a Bunsen burner.
You see that, Yeah, And he's got six other burners going,
six other burners and I don't think I've seen one
of these since I was in a chemistry class. And
I'm not really sure where he got this.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I'm pretty sure you can get them online, because of
course you can buy anything online that is true, like
this fire extringuisher I ordered online just the case Dylan
never decided to do anything. Call good Call, Good call.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
All right, Well, speaking of where to get things, when
we came up with the idea for this episode. The
thing I really wanted to know was where did we
get the periodic table? Like where did this whole thing come?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Which sounds like a Seinfeld bit? But did you figure
it out?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of course I did so. Starting in the early eighteen hundreds,
various scientists played around with ways of classifying elements, but
the periodic table we know and love today was developed
by a Russian chemist named Dmitri Mendealaev.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
You know, it is so funny. There are all these
names you learn in school, and I think if it
was on a multiple choice test, like I could have
guessed it if you had beten me one hundred dollars
two minutes ago. There's no way I would remember that name.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's very true. That's a good way to describe it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Mendelayev was a professor at the University of Saint Petersburg,
and while creating a textbook for his students, he realized
that the atomic weights of different elements followed a pattern.
Now he called this discovery periodic law. So in eighteen
sixty nine, mendelaye Have used this pattern of atomic weights
to draw up a table of seventy elements known at
the time, and this was the original periodic table. Now
(05:29):
some say his table was visually inspired by one of
his favorite card games, which was Solitaire, but that's actually unconfirmed.
But I think it's kind of a fun story.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's funny. I never would have figured that out, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I love little details like that, so I choose to
believe that it may be true. But what's really impressive
about this is that the periodic law enabled Mendelayev to
predict elements that actually hadn't been discovered yet. So he
noticed some discrepancies in the pattern of atomic weights, and
he figured that meant there were more elements out there
and that once they were added to the table, pattern
would resolve. He actually left a few gaps at his
(06:03):
table that were later filled in with the discovery of
elements like scandium, germanium, and gallium.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, that's pretty genius. Now. I remember when we used
to have the Metal Flow store. I was always looking
for fun things to put in there, and there were
people who used to make a periodic table table, which
is right. That's a much funnier thing to talk about
than to furnish your house. I am so glad you
mentioned gallium, because that's actually what I wanted to talk
(06:29):
about next. Apparently, chemists love gallium because of its great
prank potential. Now, gallium looks like aluminum and it's easy
to mold. It also melts at eighty four degrees fahrenheit.
So chemists have been known to mold gallium into a
spoon and serve it with tea, and when an unsuspecting
person puts that gallium spoon into their piping hot cup,
(06:50):
it dissolves and disappears.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Never drink tea with chemists, probably for many races, or
if you do, just bring your own spirit.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, that's a good way to deal with that anyway.
Gallium was discovered in eighteen seventy five by Frenchman named
Paul Emil Francois Lecoque de Wadra braun well done and
like a true patriot. He named it after Gallia, which
is the Latin word for France. But some people say
this was him being sneaky and sort of naming it
(07:21):
after himself because the name Lecoq means the rooster and
Gallis is Latin for rooster. Ah.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, that's pretty interesting actually. The naming of elements hasn't
always gone so smoothly. So go back to the twentieth century,
there was a tumultuous time for the periodic table known
as the transfermium Wars. Have you ever heard of this before?
So this name refers to the fact that it concerned
elements one O two through one oh nine, which have
higher atomic numbers than fermium. This was actually considered part
(07:49):
of the Cold War because it was a battle of
element naming rights between scientists in Russia and those in
the West.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's incredible. That wasn't on my AP chemistry test or
my AP history. I don't think.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I don't think mine either. But it actually all began
in nineteen fifty seven, when there were one hundred and
one known elements at least until a collective of researchers,
including some at the Nobel Institute for Physics in Sweden,
they created element one to two and they gave it
the name Nobelium after Alfred Nobel. Now, back then there
were two sort of gold standard labs equipped to detect
(08:22):
or create those super obscure heavy elements. There was one
at the University of California, Berkeley and the other at
the Joint Institute for nuclear research in the Soviet Union.
So both of these labs tried to create element one
O two to confirm the existence of nobelium, but they
couldn't do it following the Swedish team's methods. Now, eventually
using their own techniques, both the Americans and the Soviets
(08:44):
independently arrived at element one oh two and both claimed
to have discovered it. Now, the Americans kept the name nobelium,
but the Soviets went with a different name, Joliotium, after
Frederick Jolio Cui, a French chemist and a loyal Communist.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So were there like two different versions at the periodic
table during the time, like one with nobelium and one
with chiliodium.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Actually there were, and this problem just kept getting worse
his new elements were added. The Soviet and American labs
were raising each other to find the next heaviest element,
and they kept making these new discoveries, and many of
these pretty much simultaneously. So when element one O four
was confirmed, the Soviets wanted it to be called Kirchatovium
for Igor Kirshatov, father of the Soviet atomic bomb, and
(09:28):
in the US scientists wanted to name it ruther Fordium
for Ernest Rutherford, who discovered the atomic nucleus. Now, if
you were talking about element one oh five in the US,
you'd call it hanium after German chemist Otto Hahn. In
the USR it was nils borium. You can actually figure
out where this one probably comes from, for the nuclear
physicist Nil's board that we probably do remember from our
(09:51):
high school chemistry or physics classes. Now, they couldn't agree
on anything, and in fact, the countries had different element
names on the table through nineteen nine.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Actually, so how did they finally come to a consensus.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well, they leaned on the International Union of Pure and
Applied Chemistry the IU PACK. Now they resolve this and
tried to give everyone a win, Like element one oh
four did become ruther fortium, and they gave the Russians
element one oh five, making its official name Dubnium for
the city of Dubna, where the Joint Institute of Nuclear
Research was located.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what
went on during the Cold War, but I'd never heard
of any of this. Also, can I just say the
transfermium war sounds like it could be a blockbuster action
movie that's only played in chemistry classes. Well, we have
many more incredible stories from the periodic table coming up,
including copper goblins, humor pills, and cyclotrons. But first we've
(10:47):
got to take a quick break. Welcome back to Part
Time Genius, where we're celebrating some of the most fascinating
corners of the periodic table. So you know what's funny is,
(11:10):
years and years ago, our friend Adam and I started
writing a ridiculous and nerdy crime novel using the periodic
table and elements as characters.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I remember this, Yes, it was painful to hear you
guys talk about it.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Hydrogen was a crime boss and Helium was his scheming
number two who was always trying to rise to the top.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I remember this.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
We had Florine.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I was gonna say, I remember Florine.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
She was like a fifties dame who like walked into
a private eye office because fluorine is the most attractive element.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, there was a period of time where this is
all you guys wanted to talk about. It was pretty
rough for the rest of us. But actually I don't
remember what happened to that story.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
We kind of quit what we realized we'd have to
know more about chemistry. Yeah, yeah, makes sense, But it
was this, you know, fun weird bit of a thing
that we used to do anyway before the will you
mentioned I you pack or the International Union of Pure
and Applied Chemistry, which is such an interesting organization, and
(12:09):
I also decide to read up on it. It's been
around since nineteen nineteen and as they put it, they're
quote the World Authority on Digital Standards in Chemistry, chemical
nomenclature and terminology, including the naming of new elements in
the periodic table, on standardized methods for measurement, and on
atomic weights.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So if you want to name an element like after
yourself for some city in Russia, you actually have to
go through them.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
That's right. And they have rules for what new elements
can be named after. It can be a scientist, a mineral,
a place, a mythological concept or character, or one of
the element's properties nothing else.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, it actually seems fair like we don't need chemist
getting too wacky naming elements after I don't know, like
reality TV stars or something like that.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I don't know the situation, or that you're pumpium like that.
Those are great, that's name. But the most recent elements
IPAC has accepted into the fold where one thirteen, one fifteen,
one seventeen, and one eighteen. In twenty sixteen, it was
announced that these would be niholium, moscovium, Tennesseine, and Oganessennonium
(13:19):
is named for the Japanese word for Japan, Moscovium is
obviously for Moscow, Tennesseine is after Tennessee, and Oganessen is
named after the scientist Yuri Oganessen.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I'm just suppressed by your ability to pronounce all of these.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
That's terrible.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, well, apparently it used to be okay to name
an element after a goblin, because that's probably what happened
with nickel, which I'm sure you know is atomic number
twenty eight. So Swedish mineral expert Axel Frederick Krunstead named
the element in seventeen fifty four, and he was likely
inspired by a story about German miners who encountered a
mineral that looked like copper, but they couldn't extract metal
(13:57):
from it. They called it kop for nickel, which meant
goblin or the devil's copper. So when Kronstad isolated a
new white metal from the mineral he gave it the
shortened named nickel. Now some have argued that the nickel
part might be an abbreviation for arsenic, but it's more
fun to stick with the goblin explanation.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I definitely agree with that, and I kind of love
thinking about people hundreds or even thousands of years ago
encountering these elements for the first time and also figuring
out what to do with them, though they weren't always
adhering to modern safety standards. For example, take element fifty one,
which is antimony. This is a brittle metallic element with
a silvery blue color. As far back as four thousand
(14:36):
years ago, people carved vases out of it, and ancient
Egyptians used it to make their eyeliner and mascara black.
It's even said that Jezebel from the Bible used it.
But things got pretty weird in the Middle Ages when
people started turning antimony into a reusable laxative.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Oh, I have to stop you right there.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
A reusable laxative. Yeah, so you swallow up it's made
of metal so it doesn't break down, and when it
passes through your system you retrieve it and use it again. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I really don't like the use of the word you here,
that's fair enough.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
But back then antimony phills were believed to remove bad
humors from the body. As an alternative, if one wanted
to induce vomiting, one could drink wine that had been
sitting in a cup made from antimony. Actually, Mozart, who
was known to be pretty sickly, was treated with something
called tartar emetic, and this was in the eighteenth century.
This was an antimony tar crate that actually caused vomiting.
(15:35):
Of course, today we know that none of that is
good for you, so please do not swallow metal. People.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
If there's one thing you take away from this episode
that is wise wise advice, mango.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Phosphorus, which is of course number fifteen on the periodic table,
is another element that people had fun with before they
really knew what was in it. So in sixteen sixty nine,
Hinnig Brandt was an alchemist living in Hamburg and he
was doing what alchemists. He was trying to find the
Philosopher's Stone. Now, this was a hypothetical powder that would
(16:05):
turn metal into things like gold and silver and also
maybe like an elixir of life. Anyway, this was an
honorable quest and Brandt ended up distilling something he called
cold fire. So it was foamy and it glowed in
the dark, and sometimes it was yellow, sometimes it was black,
depending on how he prepared it. But what he had
really discovered was phosphorus, and how he made it is
(16:27):
absolutely disgusting. So he left out fifty buckets of urine
until they quote bread worms, or as we know it today,
attracted maggots. I love that this was just an experiment.
It's like, I'm going to take these fifty buckets a
urine and I'm just going to set them outside. It no,
fifty buckets a urine, and then he boiled the urine
into a paste and he heated it with sand.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It sounds like what a four year.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Old to do, right. They're like, I'm a chemist, this
is science. I'm gonna put these buckets out there and
then I'm gonna put sand in it. And he was
distilling the phosphorus from the mixture in that process. So
one observer of Brant's phosphorus said, quote, if anyone had
rubbed himself all over with it, his whole figure would
have shown as once did that of Moses when he
came down from Mount Sinai.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
On one hand, that is like incredible, right, that visual
of this glowing person. And also I can't imagine how
bad that must have smelled.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, yeah, I would rather not think about it. But
you'll be relieved to know mego. These days we get
phosphorus from normal places. I don't think it's buckets of
urine anymore, you know, like going to the Earth's crust.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Actually, well, I am certainly glad that over time we
have moved from alchemists with buckets to people figuring out
how to produce elements artificially in labs. And that is
the case with Ernest Lawrence, who was at the University
of California, Berkeley in the nineteen thirties when he began
his hunt for new elements. You'll remember him as the
guy played by Josh Harnett in Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah. They were only about six million characters in that movie,
but I think I remember it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, well, he's the only one who looks like Josh Harnt.
But Lawrence created these devices called cyclotrons, and they allowed
scientists to blast protons into foil targets in metal chambers,
and every once in a while this process would create
a new element. Albert Einstein described it this way, quote
it is like shooting birds in the dark in a
(18:22):
country where there are only a few birds. But in
nineteen thirty seven, two Italian chemists named Carlo Perier and
Emilio Segre shot a bird metaphorically. Using one of these cyclotrons,
they created technitium, which is atomic number forty three, the
first artificially produced element, which was one of those mystery
(18:42):
elements that Medalev had predicted. People have been looking for
it for around seventy years by this point, and it
turns out it was hard to discover because technichium is
radioactive and all versions of it decay into other elements
really really quickly. We've since learned that it does exist
naturally in the Earth's crust, but in quantity is so
small it is incredibly rare. We're talking nanograms. That is
(19:06):
an incredible discovery, though, Yeah, and it's complicated stuff. Like
imagine these guys sitting at a bar after a hard
day on the job, like just so excited to talk
about creating techniqian with the cyclotron, and no one has
any idea what they're talking about, Like, I really have
any idea of the time.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Oh that was enough for me because you shouted out
real scientists at work and managed to bring it all
back to Mendalayev. So, Mango, I think you've earned today's trophy. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Oh I love it. Well, that's all for today's episode,
but we'll be back next week with another new one
for you. In the meantime, find us on Instagram at
part Time Genius. Call us and leave a message on
our brand new hotline, and if you enjoy the show,
subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave as a
five star rating and review. This episode was written by
the wonderful, wonderful Meredith Danko. Thank you so much, Meredith,
(19:55):
and from Dylan Gabe, Mary, Will and myself, thank you
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
(20:16):
and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
me Mongaish Heartikler and research by our good pal Mary
Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the
wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show
is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry,
with social media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts
(20:40):
and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. H
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Well, what's that mango? So I
don't mean to alarm you, but do you know we're
running out of helium? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I love it when you start an episode by trying
to scare everybody. It's just a great way to kick
things off. But actually, I think I have heard about
this helium shortage, but one thing I didn't really understand
is what the real impact is, Like should I start
hoarding balloons.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Or like, what's the deal? Yeah, so I knew you
would bring up balloons because obviously that's what most people
think about when they hear the word helium. But this light,
odorless gas actually has way more important uses. Like did
you know that about a third of the world's helium
consumption is attributed to hospitals. Oh wow, I didn't know that. Yeah,
that's because it's used cool magnets and things like MRI machines.
(01:02):
And helium is also part of the gas mixture that
inflates car airbags, and it's used in the manufacturing processes
for computer chips and electric vehicle batteries. So global demand
for helium has been expanding faster than a balloon.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
All right, so this is definitely not a joke. But
should we actually be scared about this shortage?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I mean, it's true that we have a supply problem
and we can't artificially create helium, so the only way
to get it is by drilling deep into the ground.
And because it's so light, it's actually difficult to store
without leakage loss. So over the past twenty years we've
had four major helium shortages. But the good news is
that's actually a major incentive to develop products that use
(01:42):
less of the stuff. For example, some hospitals have started
replacing their existing MRI machines with a new low helium model.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
All right, that makes sense. So if you can't get
more of this stuff, you have to find ways to
use less of it, which which I get that. But
it is kind of wild that we have so many
things that rely on this one hard to get gas.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I know, and helium's been part of our lives since
eighteen sixty eight when it was first observed by this
French astrophysicist. His name is Pierre Jansen, and he was
running around the world watching eclipses with this device called
a spectroscope, which is kind of like a fancy prism
that separates light into wavelengths. Early scientists used it to
determine the chemical composition of the sun because as different
(02:22):
gases burn, they give off light. And Jansen was looking
at an eclipse in India actually when he saw this
bright yellow line that didn't match any known elements, and
he immediately reported his discovery to the French Academy of Sciences,
who was like, yeah, someone else saw that too.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh no, I know that had to feel heartbreaking, but
you know what, I'm guessing this actually happens a lot
in science, Like you think you've discovered something and then
you discover there were other discoverers.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, So Jansen ends up sharing the credit for discovering
helium with the English astronomer, this guy in Norman Locke here,
he's the one who came up with a name from
the Greek word helios or sun. And although Jansen and
Lockyer would probably share your concern about the shortage, I
think they'd be psyched that their discovery has improved medical
care and birthday parties. But that's just the first of
(03:10):
nine great stories we're going to tell today. All rip
from the pages of the Periodic Table. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh Hot Ticketer. And there on the other side
of the soundproof glass that's our pal and producer Dylan Fagan.
I knew he wouldn't disappoint today. He's wearing a lab coat,
which I have to say I kind of predicted that one.
And this is, of course, because today's episode is all
about the periodic Table. But what I didn't expect He's
(03:59):
always got some and I'm actually a little bit nervous
about this is he's about to light a Bunsen burner.
You see that, Yeah, And he's got six other burners going,
six other burners and I don't think I've seen one
of these since I was in a chemistry class. And
I'm not really sure where he got this.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I'm pretty sure you can get them online, because of
course you can buy anything online that is true, like
this fire extringuisher I ordered online just the case Dylan
never decided to do anything. Call good Call, Good call.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
All right, Well, speaking of where to get things, when
we came up with the idea for this episode. The
thing I really wanted to know was where did we
get the periodic table? Like where did this whole thing come?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Which sounds like a Seinfeld bit? But did you figure
it out?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of course I did so. Starting in the early eighteen hundreds,
various scientists played around with ways of classifying elements, but
the periodic table we know and love today was developed
by a Russian chemist named Dmitri Mendealaev.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
You know, it is so funny. There are all these
names you learn in school, and I think if it
was on a multiple choice test, like I could have
guessed it if you had beten me one hundred dollars
two minutes ago. There's no way I would remember that name.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
That's very true. That's a good way to describe it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Mendelayev was a professor at the University of Saint Petersburg,
and while creating a textbook for his students, he realized
that the atomic weights of different elements followed a pattern.
Now he called this discovery periodic law. So in eighteen
sixty nine, mendelaye Have used this pattern of atomic weights
to draw up a table of seventy elements known at
the time, and this was the original periodic table. Now
(05:29):
some say his table was visually inspired by one of
his favorite card games, which was Solitaire, but that's actually unconfirmed.
But I think it's kind of a fun story.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That's funny. I never would have figured that out, yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I love little details like that, so I choose to
believe that it may be true. But what's really impressive
about this is that the periodic law enabled Mendelayev to
predict elements that actually hadn't been discovered yet. So he
noticed some discrepancies in the pattern of atomic weights, and
he figured that meant there were more elements out there
and that once they were added to the table, pattern
would resolve. He actually left a few gaps at his
(06:03):
table that were later filled in with the discovery of
elements like scandium, germanium, and gallium.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, that's pretty genius. Now. I remember when we used
to have the Metal Flow store. I was always looking
for fun things to put in there, and there were
people who used to make a periodic table table, which
is right. That's a much funnier thing to talk about
than to furnish your house. I am so glad you
mentioned gallium, because that's actually what I wanted to talk
(06:29):
about next. Apparently, chemists love gallium because of its great
prank potential. Now, gallium looks like aluminum and it's easy
to mold. It also melts at eighty four degrees fahrenheit.
So chemists have been known to mold gallium into a
spoon and serve it with tea, and when an unsuspecting
person puts that gallium spoon into their piping hot cup,
(06:50):
it dissolves and disappears.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Never drink tea with chemists, probably for many races, or
if you do, just bring your own spirit.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, that's a good way to deal with that anyway.
Gallium was discovered in eighteen seventy five by Frenchman named
Paul Emil Francois Lecoque de Wadra braun well done and
like a true patriot. He named it after Gallia, which
is the Latin word for France. But some people say
this was him being sneaky and sort of naming it
(07:21):
after himself because the name Lecoq means the rooster and
Gallis is Latin for rooster. Ah.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, that's pretty interesting actually. The naming of elements hasn't
always gone so smoothly. So go back to the twentieth century,
there was a tumultuous time for the periodic table known
as the transfermium Wars. Have you ever heard of this before?
So this name refers to the fact that it concerned
elements one O two through one oh nine, which have
higher atomic numbers than fermium. This was actually considered part
(07:49):
of the Cold War because it was a battle of
element naming rights between scientists in Russia and those in
the West.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
That's incredible. That wasn't on my AP chemistry test or
my AP history. I don't think.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I don't think mine either. But it actually all began
in nineteen fifty seven, when there were one hundred and
one known elements at least until a collective of researchers,
including some at the Nobel Institute for Physics in Sweden,
they created element one to two and they gave it
the name Nobelium after Alfred Nobel. Now, back then there
were two sort of gold standard labs equipped to detect
(08:22):
or create those super obscure heavy elements. There was one
at the University of California, Berkeley and the other at
the Joint Institute for nuclear research in the Soviet Union.
So both of these labs tried to create element one
O two to confirm the existence of nobelium, but they
couldn't do it following the Swedish team's methods. Now, eventually
using their own techniques, both the Americans and the Soviets
(08:44):
independently arrived at element one oh two and both claimed
to have discovered it. Now, the Americans kept the name nobelium,
but the Soviets went with a different name, Joliotium, after
Frederick Jolio Cui, a French chemist and a loyal Communist.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So were there like two different versions at the periodic
table during the time, like one with nobelium and one
with chiliodium.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Actually there were, and this problem just kept getting worse
his new elements were added. The Soviet and American labs
were raising each other to find the next heaviest element,
and they kept making these new discoveries, and many of
these pretty much simultaneously. So when element one O four
was confirmed, the Soviets wanted it to be called Kirchatovium
for Igor Kirshatov, father of the Soviet atomic bomb, and
(09:28):
in the US scientists wanted to name it ruther Fordium
for Ernest Rutherford, who discovered the atomic nucleus. Now, if
you were talking about element one oh five in the US,
you'd call it hanium after German chemist Otto Hahn. In
the USR it was nils borium. You can actually figure
out where this one probably comes from, for the nuclear
physicist Nil's board that we probably do remember from our
(09:51):
high school chemistry or physics classes. Now, they couldn't agree
on anything, and in fact, the countries had different element
names on the table through nineteen nine.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Actually, so how did they finally come to a consensus.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well, they leaned on the International Union of Pure and
Applied Chemistry the IU PACK. Now they resolve this and
tried to give everyone a win, Like element one oh
four did become ruther fortium, and they gave the Russians
element one oh five, making its official name Dubnium for
the city of Dubna, where the Joint Institute of Nuclear
Research was located.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what
went on during the Cold War, but I'd never heard
of any of this. Also, can I just say the
transfermium war sounds like it could be a blockbuster action
movie that's only played in chemistry classes. Well, we have
many more incredible stories from the periodic table coming up,
including copper goblins, humor pills, and cyclotrons. But first we've
(10:47):
got to take a quick break. Welcome back to Part
Time Genius, where we're celebrating some of the most fascinating
corners of the periodic table. So you know what's funny is,
(11:10):
years and years ago, our friend Adam and I started
writing a ridiculous and nerdy crime novel using the periodic
table and elements as characters.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
I remember this, Yes, it was painful to hear you
guys talk about it.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Hydrogen was a crime boss and Helium was his scheming
number two who was always trying to rise to the top.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I remember this.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
We had Florine.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I was gonna say, I remember Florine.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
She was like a fifties dame who like walked into
a private eye office because fluorine is the most attractive element.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, there was a period of time where this is
all you guys wanted to talk about. It was pretty
rough for the rest of us. But actually I don't
remember what happened to that story.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
We kind of quit what we realized we'd have to
know more about chemistry. Yeah, yeah, makes sense, But it
was this, you know, fun weird bit of a thing
that we used to do anyway before the will you
mentioned I you pack or the International Union of Pure
and Applied Chemistry, which is such an interesting organization, and
(12:09):
I also decide to read up on it. It's been
around since nineteen nineteen and as they put it, they're
quote the World Authority on Digital Standards in Chemistry, chemical
nomenclature and terminology, including the naming of new elements in
the periodic table, on standardized methods for measurement, and on
atomic weights.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So if you want to name an element like after
yourself for some city in Russia, you actually have to
go through them.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
That's right. And they have rules for what new elements
can be named after. It can be a scientist, a mineral,
a place, a mythological concept or character, or one of
the element's properties nothing else.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, it actually seems fair like we don't need chemist
getting too wacky naming elements after I don't know, like
reality TV stars or something like that.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I don't know the situation, or that you're pumpium like that.
Those are great, that's name. But the most recent elements
IPAC has accepted into the fold where one thirteen, one fifteen,
one seventeen, and one eighteen. In twenty sixteen, it was
announced that these would be niholium, moscovium, Tennesseine, and Oganessennonium
(13:19):
is named for the Japanese word for Japan, Moscovium is
obviously for Moscow, Tennesseine is after Tennessee, and Oganessen is
named after the scientist Yuri Oganessen.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I'm just suppressed by your ability to pronounce all of these.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
That's terrible.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah, well, apparently it used to be okay to name
an element after a goblin, because that's probably what happened
with nickel, which I'm sure you know is atomic number
twenty eight. So Swedish mineral expert Axel Frederick Krunstead named
the element in seventeen fifty four, and he was likely
inspired by a story about German miners who encountered a
mineral that looked like copper, but they couldn't extract metal
(13:57):
from it. They called it kop for nickel, which meant
goblin or the devil's copper. So when Kronstad isolated a
new white metal from the mineral he gave it the
shortened named nickel. Now some have argued that the nickel
part might be an abbreviation for arsenic, but it's more
fun to stick with the goblin explanation.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
I definitely agree with that, and I kind of love
thinking about people hundreds or even thousands of years ago
encountering these elements for the first time and also figuring
out what to do with them, though they weren't always
adhering to modern safety standards. For example, take element fifty one,
which is antimony. This is a brittle metallic element with
a silvery blue color. As far back as four thousand
(14:36):
years ago, people carved vases out of it, and ancient
Egyptians used it to make their eyeliner and mascara black.
It's even said that Jezebel from the Bible used it.
But things got pretty weird in the Middle Ages when
people started turning antimony into a reusable laxative.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Oh, I have to stop you right there.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
A reusable laxative. Yeah, so you swallow up it's made
of metal so it doesn't break down, and when it
passes through your system you retrieve it and use it again. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I really don't like the use of the word you here,
that's fair enough.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
But back then antimony phills were believed to remove bad
humors from the body. As an alternative, if one wanted
to induce vomiting, one could drink wine that had been
sitting in a cup made from antimony. Actually, Mozart, who
was known to be pretty sickly, was treated with something
called tartar emetic, and this was in the eighteenth century.
This was an antimony tar crate that actually caused vomiting.
(15:35):
Of course, today we know that none of that is
good for you, so please do not swallow metal. People.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
If there's one thing you take away from this episode
that is wise wise advice, mango.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Phosphorus, which is of course number fifteen on the periodic table,
is another element that people had fun with before they
really knew what was in it. So in sixteen sixty nine,
Hinnig Brandt was an alchemist living in Hamburg and he
was doing what alchemists. He was trying to find the
Philosopher's Stone. Now, this was a hypothetical powder that would
(16:05):
turn metal into things like gold and silver and also
maybe like an elixir of life. Anyway, this was an
honorable quest and Brandt ended up distilling something he called
cold fire. So it was foamy and it glowed in
the dark, and sometimes it was yellow, sometimes it was black,
depending on how he prepared it. But what he had
really discovered was phosphorus, and how he made it is
(16:27):
absolutely disgusting. So he left out fifty buckets of urine
until they quote bread worms, or as we know it today,
attracted maggots. I love that this was just an experiment.
It's like, I'm going to take these fifty buckets a
urine and I'm just going to set them outside. It no,
fifty buckets a urine, and then he boiled the urine
into a paste and he heated it with sand.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It sounds like what a four year.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Old to do, right. They're like, I'm a chemist, this
is science. I'm gonna put these buckets out there and
then I'm gonna put sand in it. And he was
distilling the phosphorus from the mixture in that process. So
one observer of Brant's phosphorus said, quote, if anyone had
rubbed himself all over with it, his whole figure would
have shown as once did that of Moses when he
came down from Mount Sinai.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
On one hand, that is like incredible, right, that visual
of this glowing person. And also I can't imagine how
bad that must have smelled.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, yeah, I would rather not think about it. But
you'll be relieved to know mego. These days we get
phosphorus from normal places. I don't think it's buckets of
urine anymore, you know, like going to the Earth's crust.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Actually, well, I am certainly glad that over time we
have moved from alchemists with buckets to people figuring out
how to produce elements artificially in labs. And that is
the case with Ernest Lawrence, who was at the University
of California, Berkeley in the nineteen thirties when he began
his hunt for new elements. You'll remember him as the
guy played by Josh Harnett in Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah. They were only about six million characters in that movie,
but I think I remember it.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, well, he's the only one who looks like Josh Harnt.
But Lawrence created these devices called cyclotrons, and they allowed
scientists to blast protons into foil targets in metal chambers,
and every once in a while this process would create
a new element. Albert Einstein described it this way, quote
it is like shooting birds in the dark in a
(18:22):
country where there are only a few birds. But in
nineteen thirty seven, two Italian chemists named Carlo Perier and
Emilio Segre shot a bird metaphorically. Using one of these cyclotrons,
they created technitium, which is atomic number forty three, the
first artificially produced element, which was one of those mystery
(18:42):
elements that Medalev had predicted. People have been looking for
it for around seventy years by this point, and it
turns out it was hard to discover because technichium is
radioactive and all versions of it decay into other elements
really really quickly. We've since learned that it does exist
naturally in the Earth's crust, but in quantity is so
small it is incredibly rare. We're talking nanograms. That is
(19:06):
an incredible discovery, though, Yeah, and it's complicated stuff. Like
imagine these guys sitting at a bar after a hard
day on the job, like just so excited to talk
about creating techniqian with the cyclotron, and no one has
any idea what they're talking about, Like, I really have
any idea of the time.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Oh that was enough for me because you shouted out
real scientists at work and managed to bring it all
back to Mendalayev. So, Mango, I think you've earned today's trophy. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Oh I love it. Well, that's all for today's episode,
but we'll be back next week with another new one
for you. In the meantime, find us on Instagram at
part Time Genius. Call us and leave a message on
our brand new hotline, and if you enjoy the show,
subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave as a
five star rating and review. This episode was written by
the wonderful, wonderful Meredith Danko. Thank you so much, Meredith,
(19:55):
and from Dylan Gabe, Mary, Will and myself, thank you
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope
(20:16):
and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and
me Mongaish Heartikler and research by our good pal Mary
Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the
wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show
is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry,
with social media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts
(20:40):
and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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