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