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Collecting elements can be risky business. Tellurium is one of those elements that poses a dire threat — not to one’s health, but to the element collector’s reputation in polite society.
Tag: Etymology
51. Antimony: Can You Return An Inheritance?
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It’s like an Everlasting Gobstopper, but Willy Wonka is a fratricidal German monk.
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50. Tin: Your Metal Pal Who’s Fun To Be With
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We’ve palled around with tin for thousands of years, but you should know that it’s a fair-weather friend.
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Book Review: Antimony, Gold, And Jupiter’s Wolf
About a quarter of the way through Peter Wothers’ new book, Antimony, Gold, And Jupiter’s Wolf: How The Elements Were Named, I realized how much of an understatement that subtitle is. Wothers has done much more than supply origin stories for the elements’ names — he’s told the tale of societies slowly learning how to communicate with one another in a rapidly changing world.
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