What even is the Periodic Table? - Nuclear Knowledge EP. 2

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:08]What is going on? I'm guessing by the title of the video, you already understand what we're going to be going through and, you know, talking about.

[00:00:13]Uh, last video, we talked about the history of what an atom is, and I decided to go through each of the atoms that are possible, right? So, we're going to go through each of the elements today. Also, not to sound like a sappy loser or anything, but thank you guys for all your support and stuff, and thank you for all your suggestions and things like that. Um, I don't know. I like making, you know, stuff with you guys, but sometimes I want to do some educational stuff and hopefully you guys would want to see more of that in the future. So, if you do, please comment and uh, you know, add whatever the hell you want in there. I'll see if I can get to it. Anyways, with all that crap out of the way, let's just get started now, shall we? What is an element?

[00:00:39]Yeah, don't don't think about it too hard. Okay. All it really is chemically in any dictionary is any substance that cannot be decomposed into smaller substances really by like any other process, right? But, you know, you can go word for word for that, but essentially all it means is that it can't really be anything else. It's its bare minimum raw material. That's what it is. And yes, I GET IT. I GET IT, DUDE. I GET YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT isotopes and nucleides and all that stuff or not. We're not going to talk about the nucleides. We're not going to talk about isotopes at all. Okay. All you need to know is that an an element is determinant based off of the number of protons at its nucleus binded with strong nuclear force except for hydrogen one which I don't care. Anyways, let's just get straight into it. periodic table as we know it currently was developed by a Russian chemist named Dmitri Mendel and was actually uh made in 1869 a really long time ago and he organized the elements by their atomic weights and famously left out empty spaces for undiscovered elements which is helps us discover more and more elements as we go on so this no might not be correct in the future but it's close enough for most of the elements so calm down I'm not sure how familiar you are with the periodic table but here's essentially how it works okay you got the square inside the square is the atomic symbol the big ass letters and the name of it right but you know sometimes it just gives the symbol but calm down okay it's usually just referring to this symbol as the as the element itself. It's usually Greek derived. And then the atomic number, which is the number of protons that this element is associated with. The atomic mass, all it means is the average amount of particles in the middle, right? In in the nucleus, which is determined based off of the proton number and the number of neutrons. So if you do some math here, right? If we get rid of all the protons in here, which is the atomic number, we can get how many neutrons are inside this, you know, the nucleus.

[00:02:01]Pretty easy. You might have also wondered in the past why the heck, you know, the periodic table looks like that. And it's uh it's kind of actually really smart, okay? Okay? Because it's divided into these things called groups and periods. The periods are the horizontal rows and they correspond to the number of electron shells an atom has. And there's, you know, if you count down, that's seven in total. And the groups are based off of vertical columns. And these elements have the same number of, you know, veence electrons, which gives them similar chemical properties. And there's eight of them. Now, you're wondering, hey, what about those those groups down there? We'll talk about them. Okay, just shut up. Hydrogen is the first element that we're going to be talking about.

[00:02:29]And despite its location on the periodic table with the other alkaline metals, it's actually considered a non-metal, right? Just like with the other group that we're going to be talking about in a second. Hydrogen comprises most of the universe at being around 90% give or take. You know, it's just it's a lot of it, right? It's a lot of mass in the universe. And you know what? That's kind of crazy, dude. On Earth, it's most commonly found in like organic compounds. So, you know, you see it pretty much everywhere if you're a living thing. Liquid hydrogen's used for cryogenics and to study superconductivity. And isotopes of detium and tridium are used as nuclear fusion reactor fuel, which is actually kind of why nuclear bombs aren't really a big issue in terms of fallout. We still have to worry about getting blown up and [ __ ] but you know what? the fallout part isn't that big of an issue anymore because uh we're not using transuranic elements like uh you know neptunium and uranium and it's also used for hydrochloric acid which is great if you're a serial killer in 1868 when an English astronomer named Sir Joseph Norman Locker analyzed a mysterious yellow light in the sun's corona during a solar eclipse he just decided to you know record it down and 30 years later they kind of realized it was helium so they named it after the sun when Greek is helios so helium that's the deration of that word there's a bit in Smiling friends uh the hit show that they make in one of the episodes where all the helium on Earth is kind of draining off into the atmosphere and stuff like that.

[00:03:34]I talked to Charlie about it and I I told him, right, it's because a huge majority of our helium comes from natural gas wells. Um, and honestly, dude, I'm kind of saddened to me. Helium is widely used in cryogenics and superc conductivity research, and it remains liquid down to absolute zero, but will solidify with increased pressure. So, it's kind of cool. And it's used to cool nuclear reactors, which is super important. It's the lightest noble gas.

[00:03:55]Um, it's a noble gas, which is not very reactive. So, it's pretty pretty cool.

[00:03:58]But please don't do any of that stupid crap that I saw where people are like using it to talk with a funny voice. I know it's funny, okay? But it will also it's really dangerous and could kill you. So please don't do that. Lithium gets its name from the word lethos in Greek meaning stone. Super original. I know. It was discovered in 1817 and you know some weird rock called petalite.

[00:04:15]And it's only really found in uh ignous type rocks like petalite. So yeah, good luck finding it in nature. It's uh silvery in appearance and like all other alkaline metals, it reacts with water.

[00:04:24]This is an alkali metal. Okay, this [ __ ] is reactive as hell. Okay, it burns like a crimson flame and it burns a dazzling white dude and it's really scary and it's also corrosive so you got to handle it pretty carefully. Uh, it's pretty useful in heat transfer though for uh particularly nuclear applications and it can also be used in battery anode materials. So that's why you see like lithium batteries everywhere. Being one of our first alkaline earth metals, burillium was uh, you know, named after the stuff it was found with being barrel and emeralds which are pretty cool minerals. Um, it's pretty kind of boring unless you're a mechanical engineer because of the fact that you know it's a really light material. has a really high melting point, really high uh elasticity. It's non-magnetic and it resists nitric acid which is a big issue for mechanical engineers. Um it's salts are toxic and you got to be careful with that though. And uh it's used in a lot of stuff. It's used in springs, electrical contacts, spot welding electrodes, and non-sparking tools. And it's um used in a lot of craft, dude.

[00:05:11]It's used in spacecraft, satellites, missiles, high-speed aircraft, all that kind of stuff. Our first metaloid of the periodic table is boron, which actually um is derived from the word borax in Arabic. So boron, yeah, it's where it was kind of found. Um, it's super cool.

[00:05:25]Um, no it's not. It's actually really boring. Um, it's not really that toxic except for a few compounds and it doesn't really conduct very well with electricity. Um, it's using flares.

[00:05:34]That's uh kind of cool, right? Players.

[00:05:36]Carbon is um is a pretty important one.

[00:05:38]It's a cornerstone of life on Earth as we know it. It's element six on our list. And it's uh it's pretty pretty freaking crazy. We don't even know when we discovered it. We've been using it for that long. Uh the name carbon comes from the Latin word carbo meaning coal.

[00:05:50]And it further traces back to a protoindian European root of kr meaning to burn. So honestly, we've been using this word and this element for a hell of a long time. Um, it's super freaking cool. Uh, you can find it in graphite, diamonds, and and a bunch of other stuff. Uh, carbon 14 is used to date wood, archaeological specimens. Uh, carbon is also found as carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, and it's a key cornerstone in the process of photosynthesis for plants with the Calvin cycle and all that stuff. Element seven is nitrogen. Nitrogen derives from the Greek word niter and genos which is uh you know creator of nitrogen or nitric acid. So you know whatever the hell it floats your boat. Nitrogen is colorless, odorless. It's uh N2, right?

[00:06:28]Nitrogen 2 makes up most of the atmosphere, about 78% of it. Uh and it's found in a lot of crap, dude. It's found in a lot of like literal crap like fertilizers and poisons and explosives and stuff. Also, to all the students that are watching this before an exam, please, for the love of God, dude, ask your damn teacher to teach you about the nitrogen cycle. It's like actually super important, dude. It's like a water cycle, dude. It's like life would not exist without it. So, please do something. Some kids get someone to teach you what God oxygen element number eight. Probably one of the only few ones that your parents know about from heart.

[00:06:54]Uh, it originates from the Greek words oxus, meaning sharper acid and genus, meaning producer or forming. So, it just means acid former. Joseph Priestley was, you know, given the the credit for finding the element, but the actual originator of the name was a French guy called Antoine Lauran Lavosier in 1777.

[00:07:10]And the issue is is that he believed that oxygen was essential for producing all acids, which is why it's called that. But it's not. It's not the producer of all acids. That's just something that he thought because he saw rust and he was like, "Man, all this rust must be for me cuz it's being acidified by it's not. It's just not.

[00:07:23]The bubbles that you see during oxidation is not it being a part of an acid." God, dude, why is it always the French? Anyways, oxygen is a is a pretty cool one. Oxygen is a component of hundreds of thousands of organic compounds. It's colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Uh it has nine known isotopes which is a crapload. Uh its allletrope ozone which is 03 is formed when oxygen is subjected to an electrical discharge or ultra violet light like from the sun right so we get 03 oxygen gas forms around 20% of the atmosphere by volume and the element and its compounds make up nearly half of the weight of earth's crust. So 2/3 of the human body and 9/10en of water are also just oxygen. So it's it's around dude big part of earth.

[00:08:01]And to all you freaks that think that you know the stupid Antoine guy is the father of all modern chemistry, I don't care about chemistry. I don't care about it, dude. You can go florine, element number nine, named after the uh the material it was found in. Uh fluorite.

[00:08:14]Uh it's really really freaking scary, dude. It's uh the most reactive element on the periodic table by far. Uh it's a pale yellow corrosive gas, so it's really annoying to transport and react with most organic and inorganic substances, too. uh elemental florine and fluoride ions are highly toxic and uh with characteristic pungent odors.

[00:08:33]However, florine and its compounds help to produce uranium and have hundreds of commercial uses. But you know, most notably is the fact that the CDC grants florine as the greatest health achievement of all time because we put it in our drinking water and it actually does reduce uh dental decay because you know the florine bonds with your teeth and it actually acts as like a boundary layer to prevent uh you know freaking tooth decay. It's kind of crazy. And to your boomer grandpa who is about to say, "I don't want to put flour in my water.

[00:08:59]I don't want Can you shut up, dude?"

[00:09:01]Okay, no wonder your teeth are all yellow, you stupid. Element number 10, neon, is named after the Greek word for new because it was the new element at the time because it was a new addition to the periodic table and everyone freaked out. It was super lame. I know.

[00:09:11]That's the whole reason why it's called that. As common as it is in like modern culture, it's actually a relatively rare element. It's gaseous and in its natural form. It like it has to have three isotopes in order to work together properly. Uh neon's very inert. Uh, neon is most often used in advertising signs, but it's also a component of high voltage indicators, lightning arresters, and wave meter tubes. Also, if you actually wanted to know why neon's used in lights and stuff like that, it uses this thing called gas discharge. Uh, we apply high voltage electrical current through it, and it's inside a concealed gas tube. And when you put neon inside that gas tube, it energizes the gas atoms inside. And this causes the atoms to release the light as they return to their normal, more stable state. Sodium element number 11. You notice how the Na, the atomic symbol, does not match at all the name. So, why is it called sodium? Well, it's due to the fact that natrium is the Latin word for sodium, which dates back to an Egyptian mineral salt, but that's besides the point.

[00:10:00]We're gonna have to get used to this stupid Latin prefix thing for the atomic symbol, so that way we can, you know, make everyone happy on Earth. Super annoying. I I know. I know. The sodium part actually comes from the term soda, which is kind of weird, but it makes sense. Sodium is fairly abundant on Earth, and it's used freaking everywhere, dude. Uh, it's never found in nature by itself, though. It's a silvery compound. It's very soft, right?

[00:10:18]And it floats on water. But you never want to put it in water cuz the second you do, it's going to freaking explode.

[00:10:22]It ignites spontaneously in water. So, it's really scary, dude. So, don't do that. Also, I know I know you probably thought sodium was salt, but it's not.

[00:10:29]It has to combine with chloride. I mean, did you do you not even know about the sodium chloride Jimmy Neutron name did?

[00:10:33]Classic. Magnesium is a fairly abundant element in Earth's crust. It was actually named after magnesia, which is a region in ancient Greece where the uh the element was actually derived from.

[00:10:42]Uh, magnesium is a light silver to white fairly tough metal and it becomes slightly tarnished in the air and readily ignites upon heating and produces a dazzling white flame which is why whenever you go to a street takeover, all the cars are on fire because all most of the cars like the race cars there are made out of freaking magnesium. Uh, it's also used in like flashlights and photography and pyrochnics flares and incendiary bombs even. But it's also very pivotal to the existence of organic life as we know it.

[00:11:05]Element 13 is aluminum. It's called that because aluminum was first discovered in a mineral salt that you've never heard of called alum. And that's the Latin word for it. So screw it, man. Uh it's honestly kind of amazing. It's one of the most ductile and elastic metals that we have. Uh it's one of the most abundant metals, if not the most abundant metal found in the earth. It's a silvery white metal, and it's non-magnetic. It's non-sparking, and it's second in malleability and sixth in ductility. Uh, pure aluminum is soft and lacks strength, but you can kind of mix it with copper or something else to make a stronger alloy and make it more useful. Silicon, it is element 14. And if you're a computer nerd, you're painfully aware of this element. Uh, crystalline silicon is a grayish with a metallic luster kind of hue. Although it's it's kind of inert, but it's affected by H hallogens and dilutes with alkali, but it's unaffected by most assets, which is why it's used in computer stuff. uh silicon is present in the sun and in stars and in meteorites and aerolytes and all that other crap.

[00:12:00]It's not really found free naturally though, but it is usually in the form of the oxide and silicates. Also, the major reason why it's used in computers so frequently is because it is one of the best semiconductors. It can constantly just switch between conducting electricity and acting as an insulator, which makes it very very good for high energy to low energy systems like a computer. Element 15 is phosphorus.

[00:12:20]Phosphos in Greek means lightbearing.

[00:12:22]So, I I guess that's why they called it that. Phosphorus was uh discovered pretty early on in our uh you know scientific discoveries. It's a waxy white solid and it's colorless and transparent when pure. Phosphorus is insoluble in water and soluble in carbon dulfide and it burns spontaneously in the air. It's also poisonous. So yeah, I just probably should have told you that one. It's not found in nature freely, but is usually combined with minerals and concentrated phosphoric acids are important to agriculture and farming. So yeah, if you're like a a freaking farmer or something, probably use this crap.

[00:12:48]Sulfur element 16. It's actually from an ancient Sanskrit word meaning to burn is what it means. Uh, it's essential to life and stuff. Odorous, pale, and yellow and brittle solid. And it can be found as a solid, liquid, or a gas. It's very high pure sulfur. High purity sulfur is commercially available in purities of 99%, but it can never really exist up in that upper 100% echelon.

[00:13:06]Sulfur occurs naturally near volcanoes and hot springs, and it can be found as iron pyites, galena, spherite, and cineabar, and a bunch of other crap I don't really care about. Sulfur is also found in meteorites, which is, you know, that's that's one that's kind of cool.

[00:13:17]Element 17 is chlorine. Chlorine is derived from the word chloros in Greek which uh describes its yellowish green hue. It means greenish yellow because chlorine gas in its natural state is a greenish yellow hue. So yeah, the more you know chlorine is kind of interesting because as dangerous as it is, it's actually really essential for a lot of healthy and safe products for us. I mean it also bonds with a lot of very dangerous products. Like sodium by itself is very dangerous and reactive, but combined with chlorine, it makes table salt that we need for life. So kind of interesting. Also, to all you World War I nerds, you probably already know this, but to my people cleaning their houses and you're like, "Man, I really want to mix together this ammonia in this bleach because I'd really love to clean my Don't do it, dude. You'll you'll you'll just probably die. I'm sorry." Argon is element 18. It's not that interesting. It's like neon cuz it's like a noble gas, but you know, not as cool. Um, it doesn't really form true chemical compounds and it's used in incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs and used for welding because of how inert it is. Isn't that interesting? A stupid element. Potassium element 19. It is one of the most reactive elements on this list besides florine and a couple others. It's definitely the most electropositive though. Um it's called, you know, the K, right? Let's get let's get over the K part, right? The K part comes from an Arabic word kalia, meaning of plant ashes because that's where we uh originally synthesized it from. It is very soft and silvery and it can actually be cut with a knife. You can just get a knife and like cut it. It's pretty cool. But it does rapidly oxidize in the air. So you have to make sure that you store it in mineral oil otherwise, you know, it's just going to oxidize. And it decomposes in water to produce hydrogen. Uh, and it ignites spontaneously in the air. So, uh, you got to be careful. Also, I know I know you stupid chimps are talking about banana half of potassium and it's radioactive. Yes, there is radioactive potassium 40 in bananas. It's one of the isotopes. Okay, but guess what? You have 280 times more of that isotope of that potassium 40 in your body. So, ju just shut up, okay? You're getting about 0.1 microverts of freaking potassium in your body. Okay, per banana. You'll be fine.

[00:15:10]Okay, it's gonna take nowhere near amount of the amount of bananas to actually hurt you. Okay, let's calm down. Calcium. It's element 20 and it's named after the Greek word calcs for lime because it was found in limestone when we first discovered it. Um, it was discovered in 1808 and I mean it's in pretty much everything that you kind of can think about. It's in teeth, nails, shells, earth's crust, you know, a lot of stuff. Uh, but it's never really found uncombbined usually. And it can, uh, occur as, you know, as a bunch of different rocks that I don't really care about. But both natural unprepared compounds are widely used in concrete.

[00:15:41]So yeah, still don't care about that.

[00:15:42]Okay, dude. Let's slug through these alkaline earth metals. Okay, scandium.

[00:15:45]Dude, let's just get this over with.

[00:15:46]Scandium is uh it's a silver white alkaline earth metal that develops a yellow or pink cast when exposed to air.

[00:15:52]And it's uh relatively soft and lightweight, reacts with water, burns yellow red flame, high intensity lights use scandium, and its radioactive isotope is traced agent for crude oil manufacturing.

[00:16:01]>> Scandium sucks. Okay, titanium. Dude, finally something cool. Literally named after the titans and Greek mythos, dude.

[00:16:06]This This stuff is amazing, dude. Super low density, super strength with that low density, dude. It's physiologically inert. And it consists of five stable isotopes, dude. Uh, it's found in meteorites, the sun, found in rocks on the moon, and it's used in so much crap, dude. It's used in freaking like, you know, cool ass helmets and tarov. And it's also used in the SR71 Blackbird, which is a super cool long range reconnaissance plane that could go Mach 3. So, it's like, you know, three times the speed of sound. It was like reconnaissance. It was built out of 85% titanium in the airframe because the airframe couldn't really withstand the high temperatures of the friction of the air resistance going against it as it was going those hypersonic speeds. It's super cool, dude. We even had to get all the titanium from Russia because that's where we had to source it from. But we had to use shell companies in the Americas to, you know, have the Russians during the Cold War give us titanium. It was super crazy. Look it up if you want to. It's super interesting. Element 23 is venadium. It's named after uh one of the aliases for the Norse god of beauty and fertility, uh, Freya, and her name was Vanitis. Uh, kind of kind of lame, I know. It's not really a cool element in my opinion. It just kind of, you know, it's like all the other alkaline earth metals that kind of fuse together. I think we'll whenever we get to more of these kind of like fused together like mixed with a bunch of rocks and stuff kind of metals and stuff like that. I guess we'll just kind of, you know, skip over them. Just give you kind of a brief synopsis. Uh, but it does mix with chrome to make your tools more corrosion resistant. That's cool. Speaking of chrome, chromium. It's element 24. It's named after the color it was discovered in, which is, you know, chrome. Super boring. Uh, another one that's just mixed with steel to make it harder. It's a another element that exists. Element 25 is manganese. And no, my dear future chemist, it's not not at all related to magnesium. It's just similarly named.

[00:17:38]It's actually called that because it's used to form ferrris and other, you know, important magnetic alloys. So, that's kind of cool. Uh, it's very important in photosynthesis. It's a, you know, a good element to have in there.

[00:17:49]Iron. We all love iron. Minecraft.

[00:17:51]Minecraft. I love Minecraft. Yep.

[00:17:52]Element 26 is iron. We all know it. We all love it. It's actually uh it's called iron because it comes from a Nordic word meaning strong. But the Fe is from the Latin pham which just means firm because you know it's a one of the stronger materials in ancient human history. Unfortunately pure iron is incredibly reactive and rapidly corrods.

[00:18:08]So it's you know not good in its base form but it's very good with alloys. It has four you know allotropic forms of ferites and the alpha form is actually magnetic. So that's kind of cool and then it disappears in its beta form. But iron is hard, brittle and fairly fusible and it's used to produce steel which is you know something that you probably touch EVERY SINGLE DAY. COBALT. It's a funny word and it's actually comes from the Germanic word cobbard uh meaning goblin because when miners were mining this stuff for the first time or the elements that it was derived from it uh released arsenic when it was smelted down so they thought the the ore was cursed. I mean I don't really blame them. I mean it's used for some you know heavy duty applications but um cobalt 60 which is an artificial element is super radioactive, super dangerous and uh yeah we got to be kind of careful with it. So I don't really blame them for thinking that it was cursed. Element 28 is nickel and it also has a German etmology to it.

[00:18:53]It's kind of weird. from the from the German word kufur nickel would translate to copper goblin because they thought that again some sort of weird spirit was screwing up their their ores or whatever. So you know that's lame.

[00:19:04]German's a weird dude. It raw state is very hard but malleable and ductile at the same time. Kind of weird. It's somewhat feral but magnetic and it's kind of like chromium to and usage at least to make stuff you know more corrosion resistant. Element 29 is copper. It's been used since the early Neolithic. Its name comes from kupnum which means cyprus which is why there's a cu there instead of a co. Um honestly it's super cool. It's used mostly in electrical applications and it's um kind of a baller element, dude. I mean, if you ever question how useful it is, just just remember, okay, there's always a local crackhead trying to get into some pole or in your walls trying to take this crap from you, man. You got to defend it from them. Don't let him do.

[00:19:37]Element 30 is zinc. It's uh super cool.

[00:19:39]It's actually used a lot to galvanize steel and prevent galvanic corrosion.

[00:19:42]So, you know, if you're into that element 31 is gallium. It's named after the Latin word for the word France, Gallia. And uh it's pretty sick, dude.

[00:19:49]It's um one of the only metals that you can really just kind of hold in your hand and have it melt, right? it its melting point is 86° Fhe, so it's pretty pretty freaking cool. It's 28.9°C and it's used in thermometers, which is that little metallic substance you see inside them. Geranium is pretty commonly used in electrical semiconductors and stuff like that. And it's pure state, you know, it's just a metal grayish white crystalline brittle structure. It's kind of cool. I guess you've probably heard of uh arsenic. It's element 33. It's used as a poison in a lot of detective shows and stuff like that. But it's uh it's actually derived, right, the word at least is derived from the term yellow pigment in Greek because of the fact that it tarnishes in air. So that's kind of cool. Selenium element 34. It's named after the Greek word for the moon and it's uh pretty important as a trace element in life. It's um used in photocopers. So that's okay. Did none of these are really that interesting? Did I'm element 35 discovered in seaweed ashes. And honestly, it's it's kind of a a rough one to handle. I mean, it's even named after the Greek word for stench.

[00:20:41]So you can already tell it's kind of bad, but it it's incredibly reactive. It it's incredibly toxic, corrosive, uh and it's soluble in water. So yeah, have fun with this one. Ripped on. You definitely know this one because of that numbum skull superhero who thinks that putting glasses on makes him invisible to the public. But uh we all see through it, did >> you're just jealous because your fat ass head makes it impossible to blend in.

[00:21:00]>> Yeah, never met your heroes. He's a he's a dick in real life. Anyways, uh Krypton's pretty cool. I mean, it's a common byproduct in, you know, uranium pigeon. So there there's something. And it has a a spectral green bright green hue to it. So it's kind of like the Superman comics. Rabidium element 37.

[00:21:14]Another dangerous one to put in any water or air or just keep it all. Okay, you got to put in oil or else it's going to explode, right? It's just really scary. It's another alkaline metal. Um, you know, there's a lot of isotopes.

[00:21:24]There's 24 of them. And it's naturally occurring, which is kind of strange for such a crazy reactive element, but you know, that's kind of cool. It's easily ionized, though. And it's uh been given use in ion engines and stuff like that.

[00:21:36]So, I mean, that's really cool. Also, if you guys haven't been chudged the whole time, you've probably noticed that this left side of the periodic table is incredibly violent and uh scary. And, you know, there's there's a lot of reasons for it. One of the main reasons for it is just due to the fact that because there's only one veence electron in the outer shell, it makes them incredibly eager to shed it. And by losing that single electron, the atom achieves a highly stable full outer shell. So it wants to bond with anything it can really grab onto and it makes it very very very scary. That's why we want to put it in oil. It can not really react with it too much. Strontium element 38. It's a it's actually a kind of scary one. It can ignite vigorously in the air just because it's still kind of unstable because of those two outer veence electrons. And honestly, dude, it is pretty scary like chemically. It's it's very very similar to uh to calcium.

[00:22:21]And if you ingest it like in food or something or inhale it even, the body processes it exactly like it would with calcium and it will put it in your bones. And this will just stay in your bones, which wouldn't be bad if it weren't a radioactive element, strontium 90 in particular, which releases beta radiation into your body and has a halfife of 29 years. So it will just stay in you and kill you slowly. It's terrible, dude. It's a It's a silvery metal is. It's um element 39. It's like another one of those elements that just kind of exists around other elements.

[00:22:48]It's um found with most other rare earth metals and you know there's a lot of it on the moon. You can find a lot of on the moon. It's named after some stupid you know Swedish village. It's about it.

[00:22:58]Zirconium element 40. It is super super cool. It's named after gold just because of how it looks like initially. And it's um it's kind of awesome dude. It's resistant to electrolysis from corrosion of seawater. And it's considered one of the valve metals is because it spontaneously reacts with oxygen and water to form a dense, protective, and chemically inert oxide layer, which forms zirconium oxide. Super awesome. Uh I I don't know. I just think it's super cool because of the fact that it has super high temperature resistance and because of the fact that it's super corrosion resistant. It makes the perfect cladding in a reactor, which I don't know if you understand, but reactors get really really really hot.

[00:23:30]And the fact that there's a metal that can withstand these hot temperatures is honestly kind of impressive, dude. Shout out zirconium baller element. Ibobium.

[00:23:36]It's uh just like freaking itrium. I don't care about it. It's used for a couple things like spaceships and uh superconductors. Don't really care about it. Malibdinum. It's uh it's another freaking alloying agent. It's I mean it's so boring, dude, that it's named after lead because when they first found it, they thought it was lead. So that's what it's named after. Isn't that original? Um yeah, it's another one of these alloying agents I don't care about. Technesium is element 43. It is the first element that humans ever fully synthesized. There's no technesium out in nature that we really know of. Um it's kind of awesome, dude. Like not really, but you know, it's kind of cool that we found it. Uh, every single isotope of technesium, which there are 22 of, are all radioactive, so I mean, don't plan on seeing it for too long.

[00:24:12]Ruthenium is so boring and you should not care about it. I mean, it's used in like electronics or something, but dude, what a lame element. Rodium in Greek means rose uh because of the salts whenever it's combined with chlorine.

[00:24:22]Uh, it makes a rose color. It's used in catalytic converters. It's worth more than its weight in gold, and it makes jewelry kind of shiny. Palladium is element 46. And you've probably only heard of this if you've ever played the hit game Terraria. Uh, no. The the metal is not actually orange like the armor in Terrari. It's actually a silvery color.

[00:24:37]So, sorry to disappoint you. It's super cool though. It's used in hydrogen batteries and fuel cells. And um honestly, it's kind of amazing just because of the fact that it can store up to 900 times its own volume in hydrogen.

[00:24:46]The AG in silver literally just means silver in Latin. It's argentum. So, the AG uh it's the best electrical conductor that we have on the periodic table.

[00:24:55]Nothing beats it. And um it's used for coins and stuff. So, that's cool.

[00:24:57]Cadmium. It's toxic and it sucks and it's element 48.

[00:25:02]It used to be used in batteries and uh now we don't use them in batteries because we don't want to die. Indium is element 49 and it's called indium because of the word indigo for its blue spectral lines and it's used in touchcreens because it's electrically uh conductive and it's transparent. Uh tin is element 50. It's used for construction and a lot of other stuff like canned food and it's called tin uh based off the word stanum. Uh the ancient word stanium is what fills up the chemical symbol which is SN. Uh stanum means metal. So uh we're not really original, are we? Antimony is element 51. It's a rather early used metal. It's named after stibium, which is the SB in it. And uh yeah, it's boring. Delarium is element 52. It's super cool. It's used in DVDs and CDs and freaking solar panels because of its unique ability to rapidly shift between crystalline, which is like reflective, and aerous or absorbent states when heated by a laser. So, you know, it's useful for that. Iodine is element 53.

[00:25:52]And it's it's kind of cool, man. I mean, it's isotope iodine 131 is used as a highly effective targeting treatment to destroy cancer cells and thyroid cancer.

[00:26:00]And it's it's just overall a pretty good antiseptic. Xenon is element 54 and oh my god. Okay, let's talk about xenon.

[00:26:07]Okay, it's usually an inert gas. It's kind of boring, but it did cause Chernobyl. At least Xenon 135, one of its isotopes dead. Okay, so the re the way that it caused Chernobyl is that xenon 135 is a very potent neutron absorber. It's called a poison whenever you talk about in like reactor core dynamics and stuff like that. It's created by radioactive decay naturally inside the nuclear reactor during operations. And during normal high power operations, the high neutron flux keeps the xenon continuously burned off and turns it into a non-absorbing isotope.

[00:26:32]Well, Chernobyl was caused because during the preparations for a big safety test they were going to be doing for Chernobyl, the reactor's power dropped dangerously low, causing xenon to rapidly build up and choke the reaction to force the power back up. Operators pulled out almost all of the control rods, which I don't know if you know what control rods do in a reactor, but they literally make sure that the reactor doesn't explode. Cesium is element 55. It is the most reactive metal on the periodic table. It's super dangerous to put in water as you know the rest of the alkaline metals are. And um its name comes from the Latin word for sky blue. A stupid element. Berium is element 56. It's useless. I really couldn't find too much about it other than lower intestine extra imaging just because of the fact that berium sulfate doesn't get, you know, absorbed into your bloodstream or any other system in your body. Okay, before we can get on to element 57, we're going to have to talk about lanthnides and actides. Okay, you see these two sections at the bottom of the periodic table that you're like, man, what the hell are those? Those are the lanthanis and the actton and they appear separately on the periodic table for a few reasons. One of the reasons is that if you added element 57 to 71 and the other act to go with it. It would be hella wide. Okay, we already got 18 separate, you know, columns for it, dude. We can't just keep going with it.

[00:27:35]So, it' be too big of a poster, right?

[00:27:37]Your classroom poster needs to be somewhat readable for you stupid chuds.

[00:27:41]Okay, so we had to make it a little bit more manageable. Uh, lenthnidines and actides also have similar properties.

[00:27:45]So, it's kind of redundant. I mean the similarity explains why you often study lanthnidines and actides as groups rather than just individual elements usually. I mean we're you'll see what I'm talking about in a second. And the third reason is that their electron configuration is pretty unique in the fact that lanthnes and nacttoides belong to the f block which to not get super caught up in the weeds here. They just they're similar. Okay, that's just what it is. Because of how hard it was to isolate from other elements, lanthum comes from the Greek word lanthinine which just means how hard it is to find something. You can cut it with a butter knife. Element 58 is serium. It was uh isolated in 1803 and in 1801 it was named serium after the dwarf planet Cirrus which was discovered in 1801.

[00:28:21]Praodymium. It's uh it means green twin.

[00:28:24]It's stupid. It's not even green. Uh it's used with nickel 5 to make temperatures a thousandth of a degree to absolute zero. Element 60 is neodymium.

[00:28:32]This is an MRI's worst nightmare because it makes the periodic table's strongest bar magnet. Prometheium. There's only about a pound of it in Earth's crust because it is the only naturally radioactive element on the lenite section. Samarium is element 62 and it is it's a cool element for me. I like samarium personally because samarium 149 is put into control rods inside reactor cores because samarium 149 is great at absorbing slowed neutrons and because of these slowed neutrons being absorbed by samarium you can really easily control reactor power just because you know if you move those control rods up and down it's more effective with samarium because it causes power to react more effectively dependent on how high or low you raise or lower those control rods.

[00:29:08]Europium kind of sucks. All it's used for really is just the red coloring in TV screens.

[00:29:12]>> Gatolinium. It has the highest thermal neutron cross-section of any element on the periodic table. Meaning it's very very good at absorbing neutrons. And because of this, it's frequently used as a burnable poison in the control rods of commercial nuclear reactors. Turbium. It was found with itrium making yurbby, which is that stupid Swedish village I talked about earlier. And it makes the green color in TVs. Element 66 is dice prosium. It's super weird. Um it's I mean you're probably going to hate it if you're a chemistry student because there's going to be that stupid annoying kid in class who's like um actually there's a fifth state of matter after plasma. It's an exotic state of matter called uh the Bose Einstein condenset. I don't know if you've heard of it but it's super cool. And it's like dude I mean I understand it's kind of cool because it has the strongest magnetic dipole and blah blah blah blah blah atoms interact via strong longrange anastropic force. I don't care dude.

[00:29:57]Okay. Can you just shut up and like pay attention in class?

[00:30:00]>> Element 67 is homemium. I already I know I said the stupid thing. Anyways, uh it has the highest magnetic permeability and saturation of any of the elements and it creates the strongest bar magnet.

[00:30:08]So, pretty ball. Herbium is element 68.

[00:30:10]And oh my god, dude. This is the point in the video where we're just going to skip over these lame ass elements that suck, dude. They really don't have it. I mean, this one's used for internet cables, dude. You don't care about that.

[00:30:19]Thium is element 69. All right. Um, it's named after ancient Scandinavia. Ubium.

[00:30:25]I only care about this element at all just because utbium 171 an isotope of uturbium has a perfect nuclear spin of 1 over2 making it highly controllable and it's like perfect for using as a cubit in quantum computers. Lutidium is element 71. It's used as the ultimate cancer zapper. It's actively used in targeted radionucleide therapy. Oh hell yeah. I love hapneium. Element 72. It is awesome. Hapnium is incredibly powerful at absorbing neutrons. It's super super awesome because it's just it has a huge cross-section. Super high temperature resistance. This dude is sick. Tantelm.

[00:30:55]I have nothing to say about this stupid element. Tungsten. We all know about the tungsten cube. The W in tungsten stands for wolf from which is its original name. Uh it has the highest melting point of any single element at like 3 422 Celsius. So that's pretty sick.

[00:31:08]Reinium element 75. It has a high melting point but not as good as tungsten. So I don't care about it. And neither should you. Osmium is element 76 and it's the densest naturally occurring element on the periodic table. And if a teacher asks you anything more than that, then you can tell them to go suck my aridium. It is the most corrosion resistant element on the periodic table.

[00:31:23]Okay, you've already heard of platinum, right? But you only know about platinum because it's in your catalytic converter. And it's in your catalytic converter because it's great at oxidizing things, especially uh carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, turning them into carbon dioxide. And it also turns those uh hydrocarbons into water. Gold element 79. You definitely know about this element. It's named after orum, the Latin word for a shining dawn, which is uh you know, it's pretty fitting. Uh it's used in every currency really around the world just because of the fact that it's a noble metal, meaning it doesn't really react with anything, so it doesn't corrode or wear down over time. And it's incredibly malleable. So you you don't really think about it, but if you want to make a coin, you want to make it really easy to you know press and create. Element 80 is mercury. It's named after the Roman god of speed, which is uh you know how speedily it turns into liquid at room temperature.

[00:32:04]It's the only metal that can do that.

[00:32:06]The HG stands for the Greek word hydraulios, which is now what we use as the atomic symbol. It's I don't know, we have too many M named elements. And it's a it's actually a dangerous neurotoxin.

[00:32:16]So stay away from it. Thium is element 81 and it is toxic and dangerous as hell. So stay away is an important one.

[00:32:21]It's element 82. The PB in leads is plumbum in Latin, which means lead. Uh lead probably killed all the Romans, or at least attributed to the fall of the Roman Empire because of the fact that all of their piping had lead in it and it kind of poisoned them over time and uh you know, just kill them or something lame, I guess. I don't know. They're kind of dumb. Uh it is really cool because any uh trans lead element will turn into lead, right? So if it's a heavier element than lead and it's not like an unstable isotope, it will decay into lead over time. So that's super cool. Uh, it's also used in fast reactors particularly because lead has low neutron moderation properties, meaning it doesn't really slow down neutrons. It just kind of makes them bounce back into the core. Molten lead bounces in particular escaping neutrons back into the fuel core and which improves the overall core's neutron economy and efficiency, which is great because we're not wasting neutrons if you're using a fast reactor, but it's also great in most reactors just because we use it as a uh a gamma and x-ray kind of stopper. We don't want that crap to hit us. And you know what, L? Even though you turn boomers into zombies who watch news all day and it's really annoying. I love you. Bismouth. It's element 83. It's the bismol and pepto-bismol. You know, like the biz part. And it's also used to make those stairst step square uh crystalline cubes that oxidize into rainbow shapes.

[00:33:28]Pelonium. It's element 84. It was made by Mary Cury cuz you she just kept on like throwing neutrons into freaking bismouth until it turned into pelonium.

[00:33:35]So, you know, that's funny. And it's also really scary because palonium 210, which is a radioactive isotope, is in cigarettes and it will actually uh the reason why cigarettes are so bad. Yeah, you'll get tar and crap in your lungs, but you can you can heal from that. The issue is is that pelonium 210 gets into your body as well when you inhale all these alpha particles. They get into your body and an alpha particle lingers and it'll just keep on crapping out radiation into your bronchi in your lungs and eventually you'll just get cancer and it's like super scary. Dude, please don't smoke. This is a great anti-smoking ad, by the Okay, we hit a point in the video where a lot of these really big elements are going to be super unstable and there's only a few of them that are really kind of worth talking about in depth. So, we'll just kind of go through some of these.

[00:34:11]Acetine, it's uh the rarest naturally occurring element and it's uh you know really hard to find because of the decay of heavier elements in the ground.

[00:34:18]Radon, which is element 86, will eventually decay into the ground. So, be careful in your basement cuz it's the second highest causer of cancer besides smoking. Francium is element 87. It's so unstable that there's only like 28 grams of it on Earth at any given point. And it's named after the country France, which uh that really sucks. Radium is element 88 and it's probably what killed Mary Cury because you know she handled it so much and it's all over her notebooks and it's what's in those uh stupid radium pottery things that you see in the ' 50s that is super dangerous to have. Finally reaching the actides we hit actinium. It is so radioactive it glows blue. Thorium. Thorium is kind of cool. It's named after the Norse god Thor and it's going to be a potential fuel source in the future for nuclear reactors like using molten salt and stuff. Proactinium. It is element 91.

[00:34:55]It's radioactive as hell and it's not as cool as uranium. Oh boy oh boy. Uranium element 92. It's used in fuel sources, nuclear weapons, and all that kind of crap. Dude, it's super cool. Uh, uranium 235 is particularly loved in nuclear reactors because of how, you know, just visionable it is. Honestly, I'm going to go into a whole deep dive video later on about, you know, uranium versus thorium versus all other transuranic elements and stuff like that. Uh, this is where we get into the term transuranic, which means element like larger than uranium.

[00:35:19]And these elements are going to be very unstable. And honestly, some of the higher ones are not going to be that known about too. So, a lot of the other stuff applies that I said earlier.

[00:35:26]Uranium is called uranium after the planet Uranus. Neptunium which is element 93 is named after Neptune. Uh it's called this because uranium uh decays and turns into neptunium which uh you know Neptune is after Uranus. So Neptunium is after uranium. Plutonium.

[00:35:42]It was used in nuclear bombs and it was also used in the gallium plutonium alloy of the demon core. If you don't know what the demon core was, it was a three and a half in sphere of plutonium really that just was used during the Manhattan project. uh originally was intended for like the thermatomic bomb to be dropped in Japan and it earned its ominous nickname after a huge fatal radiation poisoning of two scientists after one of the scientists uh accidentally dropped it with a screwdriver. I don't know what the health these safety procedures were during the Manhattan project. You got to look this up. It's kind of scary. Okay, we're have to get through the rest of these. Okay, so for the for these next ones, right, these are all elements that were either created in a particle accelerator or byproducts of a nuclear bomb. Okay, that's pretty much like what they all are sourced from. They all have weird names, so I'm just going to give you like what they're named after and then we'll get on with our lives, okay?

[00:36:22]I don't care about them and neither do you. Let's just be so real here.

[00:36:25]Amaresium is named after the Americas.

[00:36:27]>> Yurium is named of course after Mary Cury.

[00:36:29]>> Perellium after Berkeley California.

[00:36:30]Californium after California. What the hell? Einsteinium after Einstein.

[00:36:33]Birmingham after Enrico Fermy. Mendelium after Mendelv. Nobellium after Alfred Nobel. Ernest Lawrence. Ernest Rutherford. Some dumbass town in Russia.

[00:36:40]It's called Dubna. Glenn Seaborg is Corgium. But it was weird cuz he was still alive when they named it after Neils Boore. Germany. Lee Metner. But nobody knows who the hell that is even though she discovered fishing in some stupid town called Dharmmst. Wilhelm Lauron Capernicus Nihon it means Japan so it's named after Japan Georgie Fero Moscow the Lawrence Liverour National Laboratory I swear to God it's named after Tennessee I don't know why the hell they would do this and the last element Oanison is named after Yuri Hogan well that sucked if you're a student I'm uh incredibly sorry and if you're like halfway falling asleep I don't know how you're not asleep yet cuz uh most of those elements are really boring. Uh, if you like this type of stuff though, uh, you know, the educational content and whatever, make sure you comment and, uh, tell me what you want to see next. And, uh, if I got anything wrong, remind you, it is 4:14 in the morning right now, and I am incredibly tired. So, uh, thank you for your consideration and understanding that I'm a human being, too. I'm going to go uh, probably knock myself out right now. Is that your excuse for naming half of the elements incorrectly, dude? I mean, come on. You could have at least tried.

[00:37:37]>> Hey, man. Dude, I'm I'm out of it, dude.

[00:37:38]Can you give me a break?

[00:37:39]>> I saw you when you were editing the video. You skipped over curium. Like, what the hell is wrong with you? That's a whole element.

[00:37:44]>> Oh my god. H the