Fun in the Periodic Table
I never thought that there could be humour associated with the story behind any element in the periodic table. Until I read the story behind one of the rarest elements . So no matter how much you disliked chemistry at school, this is a story you should still know. And as a bonus, have fun reading about it. The element with such a story is so rare that you would only find one ounce of it on the entire earth! Add to that, it is extremely radioactive (half-life of 8 hours; its nickname could well be “Now you see me, now you don’t.”). I am sure you don’t have the first clue which element I am talking about, so I will spare you the embarrassment of trying to guess: it’s astatine (At). Ok, if it’s that rare and that short lived, how do we even know it exists? Because the periodic table says so! Scientists knew of elements with atomic numbers 84 and 86, so they “knew” that there had to be one with atomic number 85! But since they couldn’t find it, they started trying to create...