Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Conversations with Henry

Henry: That was nice of Jake to write you back.

Me: Do you think he knows that I dedicated a paper to him?

Henry: Yeah, he knew. I told him.  I've been following your posts on the elements. I think you're doing it wrong.

Me: Huh?

Henry: You should consider going down columns to emphasize how elements rhyme. There's a story there too. Also, don't forget diagonal trends.

Me: But gallium comes after the transition metals.

Henry: Well, you already did boron and aluminum. It might it make sense to talk about gallium next instead of silicon. Did you know that the fellow who discovered gallium was named Lecoq and that people accused him of naming the element after himself?

2 comments:

  1. He "created" gallium in his own image?

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  2. "Gallus" is the Latin translation of the French word "le coq" which was the dicoverer's name.

    ReplyDelete