Elemental errors

Every writer should be prepared to take a step back sometimes, hold their hands up and say "I'm sorry, I was wrong". Some startling information has just come to my attention and I feel compelled to share it. If this misjudgement on my behalf leads to a loss of trust, I understand and I thank those of you who still support me.

Last year I wrote a post about one of my favourite films and how it was almost perfect. Avatar is that film and there was one aspect that saddened me and which I deemed to be a major flaw in the film. This flaw was enough to take away that 5th star from the rating, to knock it off the top of the all time great list. 

Not so ridiculous after all

Therefore now, with much pleasure, I can announce that Avatar has been rerated and is now deemed perfect. Hooray! Yes I know it has giant blue people and floating mountains, but let's move on. Avatar centres on the hunt for unobtainium. That wonderfully named element, that unprecocious and most mature name for an element was previously my focus of distaste. But I now embrace the simplicity and accuracy with which the name came about.

You see, there are already not one but two elements, real elements, that have names as ridiculous as our unobtainium and  I have shamefully only just uncovered this informationfound. These culprits are lanthanum and dysprosium. These two elements, however, escape the derision and ridicule that was focussed on unobtainium simply because they are not English words. Lanthanum comes from the Greek meaning "to be hidden" and dysprosium, also from the Greek, meaning "hard to get".

So why don't we have hiddenium and hardtogetium on the periodic table? Well, quite frankly it's probably because they are stupid names that everyone would laugh at. But why should we laugh? Those names simply describe a property of the elements. Why do scientists feel the need to use fancy obsolete languages to describe the world? Is the universe not grand enough by itself? What's wrong with plain old English? Maybe if the names were in a more common language then it might make the science a little more informative and a little more accessible to the non-Greek speaking community.

Revamp for the shining dawn

Therefore I have decided to revamp a few other elements that would benefit from a new name. Bromine is the first one, named from the Greek for stench (because it smells bad) and so I will henceforth refer to it simply as stinkium. Another that needs changing is technetium. The name sounds quite futuristic, rather technical and that would be because it is radioactive and is not often found naturally. The man-made version has been around for less than 100 years and the name comes from the Greek for artificial. So this element will now be called fake-ium. Finally, there is gold. Yes gold, that most precious of metals has the chemical symbol Au, which is short for aurum (from Latin this time) meaning "shining dawn". So the next time somebody flashes their new jewellery at you just tell them what a nice piece of shinyum they have.

p.s.
I couldn't end this post without mentioning that sometimes using obscure words and languages can be beneficial to avoid embarrassment. Copper nanotubes really could do with a new name. Although Cu does originally come from the Latin...

Imaginary elements

It's time to sit back and relax. Put your feet up and put on a good film... oh here comes some actual chemistry, a surprising rarity in sci-fi. Oh and it's totally inaccurate, excellent. 

#ChemMovieCarnival

As part of the "chemistry at the movies" blog carnival hosted by @SeeArrOh I'm going to look at a film that split viewers into lovers and haters. Avatar. An epic sci-fi and a basic remake of every other struggle of good vs evil, but with a huge budget and in 3D. So obviously, I thought it was awesome.

The film's premise is based on chemistry. Well at least it is based on the hunt for a new resource, a new mineral, a new element, whatever it is they give it an interesting name; unobtanium. Since Mendeleev put together the world's most famous piece of furniture, chemists have been working to fill in the gaps and add on to the end. So where does unobtanium fit on our nice little table?

Well it doesn't really fit anywhere, it's not real. But being not a real element is not a problem. The fictional element dilithium in Star Trek and the alloy carbonite in Star Wars have both become cult favourites and their use in the films is totally acceptable. The only problem that I have with the fictional unobtanium, is its name. The people at the Resources Development Administration must have used up all the hardtofindium and long ago depleted their stocks of wishwehadmoreofthisium. They had to get their hands on a new super element. James Cameron in his wisdom came up with a totally implausible name that no sane scientist would give to such a sought after material. It's this stupid name that in my opinion lets down an otherwise flawless film...

(What? There are body swapping giant blue aliens and floating mountains? That's totally fine.)

Other appearances

Unobtanium has actually made it to the movies before. In The Core, it was used to build their ship. A scientist in the film gives us a small insight into its composition, he "combined the chemicals in a tungsten titanium matrix", hmm.

The name has also been in use by engineers since the 1950s, according to trusty Wikipedia. So these films really could have put in a bit more effort to come up with something that sounded more sciencey. The tradition now is to name it after the discoverer or institute or a famous scientist, so what was wrong with Pandorium or (an egotistical and possibly worse) Cameronium. Despite being completely silly, unobtanium can still take its rightful place on the periodic table of imaginary elements (I have this poster on my wall), with other beauties such as dalekanium and crapcrapium.

For more Chem Movie Carnival fun follow the hashtag or have a look at this summary. I'd highly recommend the synthesis of kryptonite and how to poison a nitrogen based life form.

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