Periodically Crude

Old farts will know the answer to this old trivia question:

What two letters do not appear on a phone?

And if your phone still looked like this…

then it would be a reasonable question.

But phones don’t look like that anymore. They look like this…

in which case, it’s a really dumb question. (The Q is now attached to 7, and Z hangs out with 9.)

On the other hand, the periodic table looks the same today as when Mendeleev published it in 1869, so the following trivia question may be a bit better:

What two letters never appear in a chemical abbreviation on the periodic table? (I mean anywhere, bitches.)

Shouldn’t be that hard, if you’re willing to take the time to look.

Jessica Lee made headlines back in May when she placed the following quote in her yearbook:

Fluorine uranium carbon potassium bismuth technetium helium sulfur germanium thulium oxygen neon yttrium.

Seems innocuous enough, till it’s translated with the periodic table:

(A line from a Notorious B.I.G. song, for the old farts reading this.)

Are you made of nickel, cerium, arsenic and sulfur? Because you have a…

Or maybe you’re made of copper and tellurium? Because you’re…

If you got nothing better to do today, maybe you could take a ride on a ferrous wheel…

Science Word Game for Road Trips

For your next road trip, a fun, family-friendly game… especially if your family tree has a lot of geeky branches.

Couldn’t be simpler:
Combine abbreviations from the periodic table to create a word.

For instance, you could combine the abbreviations for barium and rutherfordium to make BaRf.

Or use chromium, iodine, titanium, carbon, and aluminum to make CrITiCAl.

Or my current favorite — combine titanium, platinum, oxygen, and einsteinium to form TiPtOEs. How fun!

Post your longest words in the comments. (If you choose to write a computer program to find the longest possible word, please don’t spoil everyone else’s fun.)

Uber-geeks will want to use a formula such as

Points = 3 × No. of Letters + 5 × No. of Elements Used

to score the game. And you can if you like; play ten rounds, and highest score wins. But I say just have fun, make words, and impress everyone riding in the car with you!

You might find the following lists helpful.

Single-Letter Abbreviations:
B, C, F, H, I, K, N, O, P, S, U, V, W, Y

Two-Letter Abbreviations, With A Vowel:
Ac, Ag, Al, Am, Ar, As, At, Au, Ba, Be, Bh, Bi, Bk, Br, Ca, Ce, Co, Cu, Er, Es, Eu, Fe, Ga, Ge, He, Ho, In, Ir, La, Li, Lu, Mo, Na, Ne, Ni, No, Os, Pa, Po, Pu, Ra, Re, Ru, Se, Si, Ta, Te, Ti, Xe

Two-Letter Abbreviations, No Vowel:
Cd, , Cf, Cl, Cm, , Cp, Cr, Cs, Db, Ds, Dy, Fm, Fr, Gd, Hf, Hg, Hs, Kr, Lr, Md, Mg, Mn, Mt, Nb, Nd, Np, Pb, Pd, Pm, Pr, Pt, Rb, Rf, Rg, Rh, Rn, Sb, Sc, Sg, Sm, Sn, Sr, Tb, Tc, Th, Tl, Tm, Yb, Zn, Zr

Three-Letter Abbreviations:
Uuh, Uuo, Uup, Uuq, Uus, Uut

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