World War II – The Episodic Table of Elements

drawing of the landscape of thorns

93. Neptunium: Great Expectations

August 22, 2024

6:00 am

5 Comments on 93. Neptunium: Great Expectations

Astronomy, Benito Mussolini, Berkeley Edwin McMillan, Bruno Pontecorvo, Clemens Winkler, Coal Power, Deep Time, Dmitri Mendeleev, Edoardo Amaldi, Emilio Segre, Energy, Enrico Fermi, Ettore Majorana, Etymology, Fascism, Finland, Fission, Franco Rasetti, Fritz Strassman, Germany, Hans Rudolph Hermann, Ida Tacke, Indigenous Americans, Isotopes, Italy, Japan, Lise Meitner, Nazis, Nevada, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Orso Mario Corbino, Otto Frisch, Otto Hahn, Philip H. Abelson, Radioactivity, Sweden, Synthetic Elements, Tennessee, Tsunamis, United States, Walter Noddack, Women In Science, World War II

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To the person who said, “the episodes are never too long,” I’m terribly sorry.

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92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)

May 29, 2023

6:00 am

19 Comments on 92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)

Alsos, Belgium, Church Rock, Congo, Edwin Kemble, Espionage, France, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, George Kistiakowsky, Georgius Agricola, Germany, Harvard, Indigenous Americans, Italy, Leslie Groves, Mining, Moe Berg, Navajo Nation, Nazis, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Accidents, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Otto Hahn, Paracelsus, Radioactivity, Samuel Goudsmit, Shinkolobwe, The Manhattan Project, Three Mile Island, United States, Werner Heisenberg, World War II

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America’s worst radioactive accident isn’t Three Mile Island, and the Nazi nuclear physicist wasn’t assassinated by the famous baseball player.

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27. Cobalt: Mischief Managed

December 17, 2018

6:00 am

5 Comments on 27. Cobalt: Mischief Managed

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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23. Vanadium: Beauty In The Background

October 22, 2018

6:00 am

1 Comment on 23. Vanadium: Beauty In The Background

Abraham Wald, Alloys, Andres Manuel del Rio, Anthropology, Automobiles, Biology, Friedrich Wohler, Henry Ford, Jons Jacob Berzelius, Marine Biology, Multiple Discovery, Mythology, Nils Sefstrom, Star Trek, Weaponry, World War II

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From freeways to firefights to unfathomable depths, vanadium can often be found quietly doing the hardest work.

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