» About     » Archive     » Authors     » Search     » Random     » Statistics     » Forum     » RSS Feed     Updates Monday-Friday

No. 792: Periodic Table: 62 Samarium

First | Previous | 2019-02-05 | Next | Latest

Periodic Table: 62 Samarium

First | Previous | 2019-02-05 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/dinosaur/?comic=792

Strip by: David Morgan-Mar, Andrew Coker

T-Rex: T-Rex presents The Periodic Table:
T-Rex: 62 SAMARIUM
T-Rex: A silvery metal, first extracted from the mineral samarskite in 1849. Samarskite was discovered in 1847 and named after Russian mining supervisor Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets. It's the first element named after a person!
Utahraptor: That's fascinating.
T-Rex: Yes.
T-Rex: However oxygen was named after Antoine Lavoisier's dog.
Utahraptor: Whoa.
T-Rex: And krypton was named after Superman's dog.
T-Rex: And plutonium, of course...

The author writes:

That's actually a really interesting property in this otherwise somewhat boring run of lanthanides.

It just goes to show that being a Russian mining supervisor can have unforeseen benefits. Normally you name chemical elements, but in Soviet Russia[1], chemical elements are named after you!

[1] I know, I know, 1849 was well before the Soviet era.