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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The story of indium is pretty straightforward, but its namesake is practically impossible to pin down.
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Cadmium will let you choose among a range of orange-ish hues, but it’s some pretty awful news if you contract the “cadmium blues.”
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Those people who’ve been involved with palladium’s history seem to harbor a dubious predilection for stretching the truth.