Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The Elements: World Tour

With the help of Wikipedia I find that I have a long way to go to complete an "elemental world tour" (bold denotes where I've been):

* americium – The Americas
* berkelium – city of Berkeley, California, home of the University of California
* californium – state of California and University of California, Berkeley
* copper is probably named after Cyprus
* darmstadtium – Darmstadt, Germany
* dubnium – Dubna, Russia
* erbium – Ytterby, Sweden
* europium – Europe
* francium – France
* gallium – Gallia, Latin for France. Frenchman Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who was the discoverer of the metal, named it after his country and also subtly for himself. Lecoq (rooster) in Latin is gallus.
* germanium – Germany
* hafnium – Hafnia, Latin for Copenhagen
* hassium – Hesse, Germany
* holmium – Holmia, Latin for Stockholm
* lutetium – Lutetia, Latin for Paris
* magnesium – Magnesia prefecture in Thessaly, Greece
* polonium – Poland
* rhenium – Rhenus, Latin for Rhine
* ruthenium – Ruthenia, Latin for Rus'
* scandium – Scandia, Latin for Scandinavia
* strontium – Strontian, Scotland
* terbium – Ytterby, Sweden
* thulium – Thule, a mythical island in the far north, perhaps Scandinavia
* ytterbium – Ytterby, Sweden
* yttrium – Ytterby, Sweden

Thule will be a tough one, being mythical and all. Maybe this place will have to do.

This would give one the following map of countries visited:



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