Elemental Exasperation
I was in eighth grade when I realized that since element symbols were made out of English letters, they could be combined into words.
For example, the element symbols of Krypton, Yttrium, Platinum, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Iodine, and Tellurium spell out ‘Kr Y Pt O N I Te (Kryptonite)’. The elements copper(Cu) and tellurium(Te) make the word ‘cute’, ‘C Ho Co La Te (chocolate)’ comes from Carbon, Holmium, Cobalt, Lanthanum, and Tellurium, and so on.
Yet,
I cannot spell anything I would like to spell with these elements.
I can’t spell ‘Lego’ or ‘Drum’ or even ‘DJ’ with the elements. Believe me, I’ve tried. Nothing’s worked.
After experimenting with numerous combinations– I wasn’t ready to give up– I concluded that the primary reasons for the unspellable words was that the Table of Elements did not have an element with a element symbol of “E” and another with “D”.
When I first learned about the periodic table and chemical symbols, I was told that element symbols are usually the first letter of the element name, and if the first letter is taken by another element, then it’s the first two letters. For example, hydrogen has the symbol H, and helium has the symbol He because only the first letter- H- is taken by hydrogen. The same goes for many other element pairs- sulfur’s symbol is S while silicon’s symbol is Si. Boron’s symbol is B while Beryllium’s symbol is Be.
But why, just why, did scientists decide to give Europium the symbol of Eu and not E? When they had another chance with Einsteinium, why was it set as Es and not E???? And the same goes for Darmstadtium, Dysprosium, and Dubnium!! Why are there symbols of Ds, Dy, and Db with not a single element of D????????
My only hope is to synthesize two new elements and give them the symbols of D and E respectively.
