Nobel Prizes | The Episodic Table of Elements

88. Radium: Several Sordid Affairs

October 18, 2021

6:00 am

3 Comments on 88. Radium: Several Sordid Affairs

Albert Einstein, Art & Science, Cosmetics, Eben Byers, France, Frank Zappa, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Irene Joliot-Curie, Labor, Marie Curie, Mark Twain, Medicine, New Jersey, Nobel Prizes, Paul Langevin, Paul Painlevé, Pierre Curie, Radioactivity, Radium Girls, Satan, William J. Bailey, Women In Science

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Out of all the characters who encounter radium in this episode, the only one to emerge unscathed is the guy who comes face-to-face with Satan.

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36. Krypton: It’s A Metric

May 6, 2019

6:00 am

2 Comments on 36. Krypton: It’s A Metric

Comics, Dmitri Mendeleev, France, Geography, International System of Units, James Clerk Maxwell, Napoleon, Nobel Prizes, Radioactivity, Space Exploration, Spectroscopy, The Cold War, William Ramsay

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Like argon, today’s noble gas coincidentally features prominently in science fiction — albeit in name only. But krypton also takes a place in the science factual story of international weights and measures.

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27. Cobalt: Mischief Managed

December 17, 2018

6:00 am

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Albert Einstein, Chien-Shiung Wu, Fallout, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Georg Brandt, Leo Szilard, Magnetism, Medicine, Mining, Mythology, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Weapons, Parity, Radioactivity, Symmetry, Wolfgang Pauli, Women In Science, World War II

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Cobalt is a tricksy little element, which means the scientists who’ve dealt with it the most are some of the cleverest people to have ever walked the Earth.

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17. Chlorine: Too High Or Too Low, There Ain’t No In-Betweens

July 23, 2018

6:00 am

2 Comments on 17. Chlorine: Too High Or Too Low, There Ain’t No In-Betweens

Cholera, Dante Alighieri, DDT, Dorothy Colson, DuPont, Environmentalism, Fritz Haber, John Leal, Malaria, Mosquitoes, Nobel Prizes, Paracelsus, Paul Muller, Poisons, Public Health, Purgatory, Rachel Carson, Satan, Typhoid, Women In Science

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Chlorine is an element that causes some extreme reactions, and occasionally inspires some pretty extreme reactions in humans, too.

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