If you’re trying to come up with names for an exotic element with amazing properties for that comic book, fantasy novel, or role-playing game you’re writing, here’s a list of apocryphal elements (there’s also a similar list with more details). These are all genuine false alarms from the world of science, guaranteed to have been generated from the twisted minds of actual chemists and physicists.
We really need elements called Ultimium and Extremium. Neokosmium isn’t bad, either.
The list we developed at work included Harmonium, Linolium, Podium, Nausium and Tedium. (There were lots more, but that was about 15 years ago and my memory fades.)
Don’t forget Unobtainium!
Unobtainium allegedly appears in the technical literature. Wikipedia cites “Towards unobtainium [new composite materials for space applications]”, by Misra and Mohan, in Aerospace Composites and Materials, Vol. 2, pp. 29-32. Nov-Dec 1990.
There’s only one new super-element that’s needed: Atheistium.
Or two: Antitheistium.
Plutonium is Extremium. Definitely an extreme substance.
You want _Darwinium_. It starts out pretty much useless for anything, but over time it just gets fitter and fitter for whatever purpose you use it for.
I’d suggest Squidium, but I’m not sure it has legs.
The Discovery Institute is close to isolating the element “Inferencium,” atomic weight of zero. It is the element which the Designer used to create Life, The Universe and Everything.
What! No “PZenium”? and what would its properties be?
It should have the ability to dissolve Creationistium.
When alloyed with Darwinium the resulting substance is stronger than either of its constituents.
Impervious to fire and brimstone.
Only source is somewhere in the Midwestern US.
-DU-
Back in 7th grade my buddy Dave and I made up Herculanium for a sci-phi story (about our recurring hero, Dr. Julius Norfolk). That was before we found out about the buried city of similar monicker.
Cranium. The element from which thoughts are built.
I am shocked — shocked! — that no one’s mentioned administratium!
“I am shocked — shocked! — that no one’s mentioned administratium!”
Administratium isn’t an element. It’s an operation.
As in, “You hold him down, and I’ll perform the administratium.”
I think you’re thinking of an administratiotomy. The related procedure, the administratiectomy, is greatly desired, but has never yet been perfected.
Chris Ho-Stuart: A classmate of mine used unobtanium to be the name for the element of atomic number 118, as it came up a few times once … (For those of you who can’t remember their aufbau charts and that, 118 would be the next noble gas after radon.)
Mike Haubrich: (Serious reply for a change.) Actually, my father has a nuclear chemistry book with an element of atomic number zero already: the neutron.
Uselessium, from Terry Pratchett’s Moving Pictures:
How about UDium?
Made by firing a beam of sycophants at a lump of Dembskium. The resultant element UDium is dense, and inert – but degrades over time as the mutual repulsion between the component YECs and OECs causes the UDium to fragment into smaller elements.
It is an artificial (designed) element and does not exist in nature. UDium generates a great deal of noise as it degrades but serves no useful purpose.
– How about Ignorantium – the source for most of my replies.
One night at a party, during a discussion of what-the-hell-was-it-now, a friend of mine suggested that bullet-proof vests should be made of Tedium. Vests made of tedium wouldn’t stop a bullet, you see, but they’s slow it down so drastically that the bullet would die of boredom before reaching the body.
Heh,
Several years ago I was part of a team which wrote live-roleplaying games. One of the three-day games was set on a generation starship.
Of course the hull was made with unobtainium.
And the ship was propelled by balonium.
We added a sub-plot with a mad scientist developing a better propellant from salamium, stronger and spicier than balonium.
Good times.
…
…
I’ve written elsewhere about my belief that physicists and archeologists should swarm over the middle East with Geiger counters and deep radar, searching middens and dumpsites for remnants of the diapers and swaddling clothes of the Baby Jesus.
Judging from the four-color pictures in my Bible showing the glow which surrounded the Lord during the performance of his miracles, I’m convinced those miracles had their physical origin in a superheavy, radioactive holy element that suffused the Son of God’s entire body, an element which was thrown off in minute quantities in his bodily wastes.
By digging up those shitty diapers and mounting a refining operation through the use of chemical purification and ultracentrifuges, I believe they could eventually isolate at least several grams of pure Jeezium.
Who knows what wonders might follow?
…
…
Librarium – nowadays used less as an information store
and a radioactive isotope that is sound sensitive.
Librarium is being replaced by wwwebium that uses pentium for conducting information.
And the ultimate aphrodisiac – sexium
[and its messier substitute, pornium]
I saw an Alternative Periodic Table once that mentioned elements such as Linoleum and Lint (my favourite).
Does anyone else want to revive Isaac Asimov’s old suggestion to give the 1916 Nobel Prize for Physics (never awarded) to Dmitri Mendeleev for developing the periodic table?
My favorite was from the movie Robots: Robin Williams’ character claims to be made from a rare metal, Afraidium – which is yellow and tastes like chicken…
Extremium? Bah – it’s only good for making skateboards.
My favorite is Nebulium, post facto sounding selfdescriptive. And since it was inferred from a couple of unplaced astronomical spectral lines, it is eerily reminding of the nebulous claims of designists (TM).
My name suggestion: when they find it, I hope they will name it Wellium – that is what makes the sound when creationist ‘reasoning’ hits rock bottom.
My favorite is Nebulium, post facto sounding selfdescriptive. And since it was inferred from a couple of unplaced astronomical spectral lines, it is eerily reminding of the nebulous claims of designists (TM).
My name suggestion: when they find it, I hope they will name it Wellium – that is what makes the sound when creationist ‘reasoning’ hits rock bottom.
I immediately thought of pornium’s primary decay product, masturbatium… but on second thought, that sounds more like a flower (similar to nasturtium) than an element.
*cough*
On another tack…
In the future all our ubiquitous copper, nickel, silver, and gold coins will be replaced by currency minted from pure honorarium.
Too late. The Nobel Prize is never given to dead people.
And what about Lothar Meyer, anyway?
Too late. The Nobel Prize is never given to dead people.
And what about Lothar Meyer, anyway?
Too late. The Nobel Prize is never given to dead people.
And what about Lothar Meyer, anyway?
Too late. The Nobel Prize is never given to dead people.
And what about Lothar Meyer, anyway?
You had bring this to my attention, didn’t you?
Unobtainium turns up in the hilariously bad movie The Core, which has easily the worst science in movie history.
Don’t forget another one from Pratchett – narrativium.