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Christopher Columbus has lost prestige in the New World. First came the historical disputes regarding his claim to priority. But perhaps the most ignominious insult was being downgraded from the Periodic Table.
Finally there's an interesting naming story:
Charles Hatchett's important scientific work was done in the period 1796 to 1806. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1797, which is a measure of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow scientists. In 1801 he described in a paper his analysis of a mineral called columbite, named after the location where it had been found in North America. This mineral sample from Massachusetts had lain in the British Museum since 1753. He described the mineral as ".. a heavy black stone with golden streaks ... from Mr. Winthrop": John Winthrop was the first Governor of Connecticut, the source of the mineral. Hatchett showed that the mineral contained a new element and he called it columbium and the mineral columbite, after its place of origin. This year (2001) marks the bicentenary of his discovery. LinkWe called Element 41 "columbium" (Cb) for over 150 years until the Euros took it away from us. Van der Krogt:
Element #41 was therefore long known as Niobium as well as Columbium. To end this confusion, at the 15th Conference of the Union of Chemistry in Amsterdam in 1949 the name Niobium was chosen for element #41 and a year later this name was accepted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, despite the chronological precedence of the name Columbium. The latter name is still sometimes used in US industry.Evidence suggests that the Europeans railroaded US out of the name Columbium just to have it for themselves :)
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| The green color comes from niobium oxide |
18 comments:
In Atlas Shrugged, Hank Reardon's new steel process caused the steel have a blue-green color.
I had to double-check though. I had remembered it being pale green. Funny.
'Night all.
The reverse side of that half dollar coin is pretty. They were minted in 1892 and 1893 to mark the 400th anniversary. Did anyone even mention the 500th anniversary in 1992?
All that Columbium and no mention of Colombian hookers.
Chick stays above the fray.
You're a regular Gaucho Marx, Lem
Hey Nineteen
1992 was the very first time I noticed PC on an American college campus. It was heighten by the fact that I had been living in Europe and hadn't been in the US nor immersed in its culture for 2 years.
It was funny, today. I read (not here, in the sense of here at this blog, nor in the sense of anyone writing here, in the state in which I currently reside) that some banks were closed today and that some friends were surprised by that and some were not. I have no idea whether local banks were closed today, having had no reason to go to the bank this Monday. My husband did have to report for a mass jury-call today in Wilmington. My son's online international school had today scheduled as a holiday. His local cousins, however, were in school today (it wasn't a holiday, in other words, for either public or quasi-public [charter] schools). Etc. So, there you go. A mix.
Did anyone even mention the 500th anniversary in 1992?
As I recall it, yes, yes, indeed, not just even "anyone" did. Of course, I could be wrong in my memory.
Would you please either validate my recollection or my caveat, please?
I myself would appreciate knowing which is it.
Here's a starter, if only a starter, for thoughts casting back:
1991 blast from the past, in advance of 1992
Believe you me, there were lots of thoughts in, and leading up, to 1992. Mentioning abounded: In fact, one could hardly duck the richness, endlessly, of opinion on the topic, if not subject.
If indeed that experience escaped your notice back then (and I'm not convinced that it did, for the record: perhaps this is a snark post, only, the equivalent of a chirbit with hidden meaning cloaked behind the surface), where were you and what were you doing at the time that such a thing escaped your notice?
Much like Ahnold, Chris will be back.
Especially when it becomes clear the "Native" Americans wiped out the Native Americans.
(1) It was in Lapham's Quarterly I read an excerpt from a letter Columbus wrote to the royal court trying to get out of jail and get more money to do another expedition or something or other.
I'm not in the mood to look it up, but Columbus took obsequious desperation to a whole new level.
(2) It's funny how some people who decry things like Columbus losing his place in the civic pantheon are sometimes the same people who criticize modern education as being little more than leftist indoctrination.
Some people are dependably . . . rigid . . . in their thinking.
Like the poor, the doctrinaire followers, the true believers, will always be among us, I suppose.
If indeed that experience escaped your notice back then (and I'm not convinced that it did, for the record: perhaps this is a snark post, only, the equivalent of a chirbit with hidden meaning cloaked behind the surface), where were you and what were you doing at the time that such a thing escaped your notice?
I was back for just a month in 1992, in the summer, but then left again for Europe to spend another year in Germany. So I didn't actually spend October 1992 in the States. Also, when I did return to Europe (to Germany, not Switzerland), I immersed myself completely in German and had only BBC radio broadcasts and the weekly Economist as English language news during that time.
I missed other far more important phenomena such as the rise of Bill Clinton and also Beavis and Butthead. When I returned for good in 1993, they were well ensconced. I did keep up on pop music via cassette tapes sent by friends.
In retrospect, the taking away of the name "Columbium" by the Europeans seems mean-spirited, especially given the location of its discovery. But keep in mind that we Americans had recently added more than few new elements to the Periodic Table: Neptunium, Plutonium, Curium, Berkelelium, etc. and the Euros may have felt like they were losing pre-eminence and privilege.
Niobium rings are pretty cool. Chick you can let me know to what extent niobium actually contributes to that pretty blue and/or other colors.
http://www.titaniumringsforever.com/titanium-rings/niobium/nikolai-set
Here's another niobium coin
http://agaunews.com/new-release-austrian-mint-evolve-award-winning-niobium-range-for-2014/
@R&B: Most metals appear shiny and silver because they do little with light except bounce it back like a mirror. Copper and gold are exceptions because they actually absorb some photons when bathed with white light. Of course they absorb the complimentary color of what we see because that's the way color wheels work.
Niobium's color is something different. Pure niobium is also metallic looking. It is slightly air sensitive though and slowly grows an oxide surface. This is called passivation. The passivation layer is an oxide layer and its thickness can be controlled in a metallurgical process called anodization (bagoh20 probably knows more about this than I do). Note its not called "cathodization."
The layer of niobium oxide acts like a diffraction grating: light goes in and is reflected by the surface below. The atoms of the oxide layer cause constructive and destructive wave interference: canceling some frequencies and letting pass a complimentary panoply of color which we see.
I'll bet (but don't know) that the metal's color depends on the angle you're looking from with respect to the surface.
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