Platinum, Golden Years, and the Periodic Table of Death and Mystery, Part 1

They are all retired now, some for years, this group of men. Yet because of their long-standing friendship and interests, they still meet Friday nights at the local pub for a pint and to reminisce about the good old days. All that excitement. The adulation of their criminal peers. How ‘bout one more caper for old time’s sake? One that would net them millions of dollars in gold, silver, precious stones, and platinum.

Platinum. “Rare, pure, eternal.” And expensive. A jeweler’s slogan that perfectly describes this periodic table element. Perfect for coins—or so you’d think. But platinum is actually too hard and rare. It is used for wedding rings because it doesn’t wear away as easily as silver and gold. Which brings us back to those jewelers and to a heist that netted everything but the kitchen sink—including a plethora of platinum bars.

What started out as the search for the origin of the police slang, “copper” (Copper badges?), ended up as a poignant reminder of historical pain and resilience of enslaved people during a Charleston, South Carolina archaeological dig.

Research about Titanium dioxide and a lawsuit over the candy Skittles turned out to be less than tongue-in-cheek cute. Instead, let’s stamp a disclaimer warning right up front: the information extracted from extensive reading on this topic is … concerning. Or is it?

This podcast will the introduce 4-inch-long cockroaches, giant millipedes up to 8 feet long, and dragonflies the size of pigeons of the Carboniferous era (323 to 299 million years ago) and ask the question: Why were bugs so BIG 300 million years ago? The answer in no small part is because of oxygen (O), the 8th element of the periodic table and one most life on earth can’t live without.

In Paris, at the Institut du Radium, Madame Marie Curie, looked over graduates of the class of 1929 and selected the top student, Marguerite Perey (who was only 19 years old), to come and work as her technician. Perey discovered and named Francium, and, like her mentor before her, became a beacon for women in science everywhere. 

In part one of the beryllium (Be) story, you learned that four atomic cores were created for the Manhattan Project, but only three were detonated. The fourth core, nicknamed Rufus, continued to be used in further research … until it killed two careless scientists who mishandled the beryllium tamper. That’s when its name was changed to the Demon Core. 

This podcast was initially inspired by the 2023 movie, Oppenheimer, and the Manhattan Project which means it has a New Mexico connection (Yay!). Because, while the use of a Beryllium tamper saved the lives of numerous scientists working with radioactive materials at Los Alamos, mistakes could be fatal (Boo!).

With the rise of variable renewable energy like solar and wind, the term “variable” became an immediate problem. Solar creates electricity when the sun shines, but at night? Back to electrical generation with fossil fuels. When the wind blows there’s power, but when it doesn’t, coal and gas fill in the gaps. Thus began a concerted push for a new generation of batteries for use during downtimes. Was there a periodic table element that could be safely used in renewable power generation? Why, yes, there was! Vanadium.

Sometimes the Periodic Table of Death and Mystery comes very close to home. She was from a prominent family in her small, insular town, and he worked as the manager at a brothel. She was eighteen when they met and he was thirty-six and married. She became pregnant with his child before he was shot, dead from the lead of a bullet fired in anger. His name was José Ramirez, but everyone called him Joe.