You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.

Guess what, Well, what's that mango?

So I don't mean to alarm you, but do you know we're running out of helium?

Yeah?

I love it when you start an episode by trying to scare everybody.

It's just a great way to kick things off.

But actually, I think I have heard about this helium shortage, but one thing I didn't really understand is what the real impact is, Like should I start hoarding balloons.

Or like, what's the deal?

Yeah, so I knew you would bring up balloons because obviously that's what most people think about when they hear the word helium.

But this light, odorless gas actually has way more important uses.

Like did you know that about a third of the world's helium consumption is attributed to hospitals.

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah, that's because it's used cool magnets and things like MRI machines.

And helium is also part of the gas mixture that inflates car airbags, and it's used in the manufacturing processes for computer chips and electric vehicle batteries.

So global demand for helium has been expanding faster than a balloon.

All right, so this is definitely not a joke.

But should we actually be scared about this shortage?

I mean, it's true that we have a supply problem and we can't artificially create helium, so the only way to get it is by drilling deep into the ground.

And because it's so light, it's actually difficult to store without leakage loss.

So over the past twenty years we've had four major helium shortages.

But the good news is that's actually a major incentive to develop products that use less of the stuff.

For example, some hospitals have started replacing their existing MRI machines with a new low helium model.

All right, that makes sense.

So if you can't get more of this stuff, you have to find ways to use less of it, which which I get that.

But it is kind of wild that we have so many things that rely on this one hard to get gas.

I know, and helium's been part of our lives since eighteen sixty eight when it was first observed by this French astrophysicist.

His name is Pierre Jansen, and he was running around the world watching eclipses with this device called a spectroscope, which is kind of like a fancy prism that separates light into wavelengths.

Early scientists used it to determine the chemical composition of the sun because as different gases burn, they give off light.

And Jansen was looking at an eclipse in India actually when he saw this bright yellow line that didn't match any known elements, and he immediately reported his discovery to the French Academy of Sciences, who was like, yeah, someone else saw that too.

Oh no, I know that had to feel heartbreaking, but you know what, I'm guessing this actually happens a lot in science, Like you think you've discovered something and then you discover there were other discoverers.

Yeah, So Jansen ends up sharing the credit for discovering helium with the English astronomer, this guy in Norman Locke here, he's the one who came up with a name from the Greek word helios or sun.

And although Jansen and Lockyer would probably share your concern about the shortage, I think they'd be psyched that their discovery has improved medical care and birthday parties.

But that's just the first of nine great stories we're going to tell today.

All rip from the pages of the Periodic Table.

Let's dive in.

Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius.

I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Hot Ticketer.

And there on the other side of the soundproof glass that's our pal and producer Dylan Fagan.

I knew he wouldn't disappoint today.

He's wearing a lab coat, which I have to say I kind of predicted that one.

And this is, of course, because today's episode is all about the periodic Table.

But what I didn't expect He's always got some and I'm actually a little bit nervous about this is he's about to light a Bunsen burner.

You see that, Yeah, And he's got six other burners going, six other burners and I don't think I've seen one of these since I was in a chemistry class.

And I'm not really sure where he got this.

I'm pretty sure you can get them online, because of course you can buy anything online that is true, like this fire extringuisher I ordered online just the case Dylan never decided to do anything.

Call good Call, Good call.

All right, Well, speaking of where to get things, when we came up with the idea for this episode.

The thing I really wanted to know was where did we get the periodic table?

Like where did this whole thing come?

Which sounds like a Seinfeld bit?

But did you figure it out?

Of course I did so.

Starting in the early eighteen hundreds, various scientists played around with ways of classifying elements, but the periodic table we know and love today was developed by a Russian chemist named Dmitri Mendealaev.

You know, it is so funny.

There are all these names you learn in school, and I think if it was on a multiple choice test, like I could have guessed it if you had beten me one hundred dollars two minutes ago.

There's no way I would remember that name.

That's very true.

That's a good way to describe it.

Well.

Mendelayev was a professor at the University of Saint Petersburg, and while creating a textbook for his students, he realized that the atomic weights of different elements followed a pattern.

Now he called this discovery periodic law.

So in eighteen sixty nine, mendelaye Have used this pattern of atomic weights to draw up a table of seventy elements known at the time, and this was the original periodic table.

Now some say his table was visually inspired by one of his favorite card games, which was Solitaire, but that's actually unconfirmed.

But I think it's kind of a fun story.

That's funny.

I never would have figured that out, yeah, and.

I love little details like that, so I choose to believe that it may be true.

But what's really impressive about this is that the periodic law enabled Mendelayev to predict elements that actually hadn't been discovered yet.

So he noticed some discrepancies in the pattern of atomic weights, and he figured that meant there were more elements out there and that once they were added to the table, pattern would resolve.

He actually left a few gaps at his table that were later filled in with the discovery of elements like scandium, germanium, and gallium.

Yeah, that's pretty genius.

Now.

I remember when we used to have the Metal Flow store.

I was always looking for fun things to put in there, and there were people who used to make a periodic table table, which is right.

That's a much funnier thing to talk about than to furnish your house.

I am so glad you mentioned gallium, because that's actually what I wanted to talk about next.

Apparently, chemists love gallium because of its great prank potential.

Now, gallium looks like aluminum and it's easy to mold.

It also melts at eighty four degrees fahrenheit.

So chemists have been known to mold gallium into a spoon and serve it with tea, and when an unsuspecting person puts that gallium spoon into their piping hot cup, it dissolves and disappears.

Never drink tea with chemists, probably for many races, or if you do, just bring your own spirit.

Yeah, that's a good way to deal with that anyway.

Gallium was discovered in eighteen seventy five by Frenchman named Paul Emil Francois Lecoque de Wadra braun well done and like a true patriot.

He named it after Gallia, which is the Latin word for France.

But some people say this was him being sneaky and sort of naming it after himself because the name Lecoq means the rooster and Gallis is Latin for rooster.

Ah.

Well, that's pretty interesting actually.

The naming of elements hasn't always gone so smoothly.

So go back to the twentieth century, there was a tumultuous time for the periodic table known as the transfermium Wars.

Have you ever heard of this before?

So this name refers to the fact that it concerned elements one O two through one oh nine, which have higher atomic numbers than fermium.

This was actually considered part of the Cold War because it was a battle of element naming rights between scientists in Russia and those in the West.

That's incredible.

That wasn't on my AP chemistry test or my AP history.

I don't think.

I don't think mine either.

But it actually all began in nineteen fifty seven, when there were one hundred and one known elements at least until a collective of researchers, including some at the Nobel Institute for Physics in Sweden, they created element one to two and they gave it the name Nobelium after Alfred Nobel.

Now, back then there were two sort of gold standard labs equipped to detect or create those super obscure heavy elements.

There was one at the University of California, Berkeley and the other at the Joint Institute for nuclear research in the Soviet Union.

So both of these labs tried to create element one O two to confirm the existence of nobelium, but they couldn't do it following the Swedish team's methods.

Now, eventually using their own techniques, both the Americans and the Soviets independently arrived at element one oh two and both claimed to have discovered it.

Now, the Americans kept the name nobelium, but the Soviets went with a different name, Joliotium, after Frederick Jolio Cui, a French chemist and a loyal Communist.

So were there like two different versions at the periodic table during the time, like one with nobelium and one with chiliodium.

Actually there were, and this problem just kept getting worse his new elements were added.

The Soviet and American labs were raising each other to find the next heaviest element, and they kept making these new discoveries, and many of these pretty much simultaneously.

So when element one O four was confirmed, the Soviets wanted it to be called Kirchatovium for Igor Kirshatov, father of the Soviet atomic bomb, and in the US scientists wanted to name it ruther Fordium for Ernest Rutherford, who discovered the atomic nucleus.

Now, if you were talking about element one oh five in the US, you'd call it hanium after German chemist Otto Hahn.

In the USR it was nils borium.

You can actually figure out where this one probably comes from, for the nuclear physicist Nil's board that we probably do remember from our high school chemistry or physics classes.

Now, they couldn't agree on anything, and in fact, the countries had different element names on the table through nineteen nine.

Actually, so how did they finally come to a consensus.

Well, they leaned on the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry the IU PACK.

Now they resolve this and tried to give everyone a win, Like element one oh four did become ruther fortium, and they gave the Russians element one oh five, making its official name Dubnium for the city of Dubna, where the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research was located.

I thought I had a pretty good idea of what went on during the Cold War, but I'd never heard of any of this.

Also, can I just say the transfermium war sounds like it could be a blockbuster action movie that's only played in chemistry classes.

Well, we have many more incredible stories from the periodic table coming up, including copper goblins, humor pills, and cyclotrons.

But first we've got to take a quick break.

Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're celebrating some of the most fascinating corners of the periodic table.

So you know what's funny is, years and years ago, our friend Adam and I started writing a ridiculous and nerdy crime novel using the periodic table and elements as characters.

I remember this, Yes, it was painful to hear you guys talk about it.

Hydrogen was a crime boss and Helium was his scheming number two who was always trying to rise to the top.

I remember this.

We had Florine.

I was gonna say, I remember Florine.

She was like a fifties dame who like walked into a private eye office because fluorine is the most attractive element.

Yeah, there was a period of time where this is all you guys wanted to talk about.

It was pretty rough for the rest of us.

But actually I don't remember what happened to that story.

We kind of quit what we realized we'd have to know more about chemistry.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense, But it was this, you know, fun weird bit of a thing that we used to do anyway before the will you mentioned I you pack or the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which is such an interesting organization, and I also decide to read up on it.

It's been around since nineteen nineteen and as they put it, they're quote the World Authority on Digital Standards in Chemistry, chemical nomenclature and terminology, including the naming of new elements in the periodic table, on standardized methods for measurement, and on atomic weights.

So if you want to name an element like after yourself for some city in Russia, you actually have to go through them.

That's right.

And they have rules for what new elements can be named after.

It can be a scientist, a mineral, a place, a mythological concept or character, or one of the element's properties nothing else.

Yeah, it actually seems fair like we don't need chemist getting too wacky naming elements after I don't know, like reality TV stars or something like that.

I don't know the situation, or that you're pumpium like that.

Those are great, that's name.

But the most recent elements IPAC has accepted into the fold where one thirteen, one fifteen, one seventeen, and one eighteen.

In twenty sixteen, it was announced that these would be niholium, moscovium, Tennesseine, and Oganessennonium is named for the Japanese word for Japan, Moscovium is obviously for Moscow, Tennesseine is after Tennessee, and Oganessen is named after the scientist Yuri Oganessen.

I'm just suppressed by your ability to pronounce all of these.

That's terrible.

Yeah, well, apparently it used to be okay to name an element after a goblin, because that's probably what happened with nickel, which I'm sure you know is atomic number twenty eight.

So Swedish mineral expert Axel Frederick Krunstead named the element in seventeen fifty four, and he was likely inspired by a story about German miners who encountered a mineral that looked like copper, but they couldn't extract metal from it.

They called it kop for nickel, which meant goblin or the devil's copper.

So when Kronstad isolated a new white metal from the mineral he gave it the shortened named nickel.

Now some have argued that the nickel part might be an abbreviation for arsenic, but it's more fun to stick with the goblin explanation.

I definitely agree with that, and I kind of love thinking about people hundreds or even thousands of years ago encountering these elements for the first time and also figuring out what to do with them, though they weren't always adhering to modern safety standards.

For example, take element fifty one, which is antimony.

This is a brittle metallic element with a silvery blue color.

As far back as four thousand years ago, people carved vases out of it, and ancient Egyptians used it to make their eyeliner and mascara black.

It's even said that Jezebel from the Bible used it.

But things got pretty weird in the Middle Ages when people started turning antimony into a reusable laxative.

Oh, I have to stop you right there.

A reusable laxative.

Yeah, so you swallow up it's made of metal so it doesn't break down, and when it passes through your system you retrieve it and use it again.

Yeah.

I really don't like the use of the word you here, that's fair enough.

But back then antimony phills were believed to remove bad humors from the body.

As an alternative, if one wanted to induce vomiting, one could drink wine that had been sitting in a cup made from antimony.

Actually, Mozart, who was known to be pretty sickly, was treated with something called tartar emetic, and this was in the eighteenth century.

This was an antimony tar crate that actually caused vomiting.

Of course, today we know that none of that is good for you, so please do not swallow metal.

People.

If there's one thing you take away from this episode that is wise wise advice, mango.

Well.

Phosphorus, which is of course number fifteen on the periodic table, is another element that people had fun with before they really knew what was in it.

So in sixteen sixty nine, Hinnig Brandt was an alchemist living in Hamburg and he was doing what alchemists.

He was trying to find the Philosopher's Stone.

Now, this was a hypothetical powder that would turn metal into things like gold and silver and also maybe like an elixir of life.

Anyway, this was an honorable quest and Brandt ended up distilling something he called cold fire.

So it was foamy and it glowed in the dark, and sometimes it was yellow, sometimes it was black, depending on how he prepared it.

But what he had really discovered was phosphorus, and how he made it is absolutely disgusting.

So he left out fifty buckets of urine until they quote bread worms, or as we know it today, attracted maggots.

I love that this was just an experiment.

It's like, I'm going to take these fifty buckets a urine and I'm just going to set them outside.

It no, fifty buckets a urine, and then he boiled the urine into a paste and he heated it with sand.

It sounds like what a four year.

Old to do, right.

They're like, I'm a chemist, this is science.

I'm gonna put these buckets out there and then I'm gonna put sand in it.

And he was distilling the phosphorus from the mixture in that process.

So one observer of Brant's phosphorus said, quote, if anyone had rubbed himself all over with it, his whole figure would have shown as once did that of Moses when he came down from Mount Sinai.

On one hand, that is like incredible, right, that visual of this glowing person.

And also I can't imagine how bad that must have smelled.

Yeah, yeah, I would rather not think about it.

But you'll be relieved to know mego.

These days we get phosphorus from normal places.

I don't think it's buckets of urine anymore, you know, like going to the Earth's crust.

Actually, well, I am certainly glad that over time we have moved from alchemists with buckets to people figuring out how to produce elements artificially in labs.

And that is the case with Ernest Lawrence, who was at the University of California, Berkeley in the nineteen thirties when he began his hunt for new elements.

You'll remember him as the guy played by Josh Harnett in Oppenheimer.

Yeah.

They were only about six million characters in that movie, but I think I remember it.

Yeah, well, he's the only one who looks like Josh Harnt.

But Lawrence created these devices called cyclotrons, and they allowed scientists to blast protons into foil targets in metal chambers, and every once in a while this process would create a new element.

Albert Einstein described it this way, quote it is like shooting birds in the dark in a country where there are only a few birds.

But in nineteen thirty seven, two Italian chemists named Carlo Perier and Emilio Segre shot a bird metaphorically.

Using one of these cyclotrons, they created technitium, which is atomic number forty three, the first artificially produced element, which was one of those mystery elements that Medalev had predicted.

People have been looking for it for around seventy years by this point, and it turns out it was hard to discover because technichium is radioactive and all versions of it decay into other elements really really quickly.

We've since learned that it does exist naturally in the Earth's crust, but in quantity is so small it is incredibly rare.

We're talking nanograms.

That is an incredible discovery, though, Yeah, and it's complicated stuff.

Like imagine these guys sitting at a bar after a hard day on the job, like just so excited to talk about creating techniqian with the cyclotron, and no one has any idea what they're talking about, Like, I really have any idea of the time.

Oh that was enough for me because you shouted out real scientists at work and managed to bring it all back to Mendalayev.

So, Mango, I think you've earned today's trophy.

Congratulations.

Oh I love it.

Well, that's all for today's episode, but we'll be back next week with another new one for you.

In the meantime, find us on Instagram at part Time Genius.

Call us and leave a message on our brand new hotline, and if you enjoy the show, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave as a five star rating and review.

This episode was written by the wonderful, wonderful Meredith Danko.

Thank you so much, Meredith, and from Dylan Gabe, Mary, Will and myself, thank you for listening.

Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.

This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaish Heartikler and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy.

Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.

The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.

For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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