{"id":1869,"date":"2011-02-04T01:38:34","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T05:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/?p=1869"},"modified":"2011-02-04T09:29:05","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T13:29:05","slug":"thursday-night-thulium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2011\/02\/04\/thursday-night-thulium\/","title":{"rendered":"THursday night &#8211; Thulium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes.. you just feel like Thulium.. .. Tonight we were looking at the table of the elements place mat that all three kids learned to eat solid foot above.. It&#8217;s a rather faded.. somewhat dated snapshot of the state\u00a0 of physical chemistry circa 1988 when Max was born. It stops demurely at 109 elements.. rather than today&#8217;s boastful 118 .\u00a0\u00a0 The mysterious spinach (for iron) and banana (for potassium) are there but faded.. I remember so well feeding the kids as they sat in high chair.. going off on this or that element and its properties.<\/p>\n<p>We have the mat\u00a0 (one tee) out because Matt (two tee&#8217;s) and his sister Britt are taking chemistry at the local community college.\u00a0\u00a0 Matt likes to quiz me on the use and properties of the various elements..<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thue.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1871\" title=\"thue\" src=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thue.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thue.jpg 600w, http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thue.jpg 300w, http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thue.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today we talked about &#8216;Thulium&#8217;.. I read somewhere that Thulium is  considered by some to be the &#8216;least useful element&#8217;.. What a designation  to live down.. I happen to know that Thulium provides a very important  green line in the phosphors used in florescent tubes.<\/p>\n<p>Without Thulium&#8217;s charms, we would look even more ghastly under florescent light.. I also just read it&#8217;s used as a bremstrallung target in mobile X-ray devices.. now how cool is that ?!?!?!<\/p>\n<p>I would submit to you that on some days, everyone feels a little like thulium\u00a0 .. a little useless.. a little out of place..<\/p>\n<p>but consider this.. without thulium, the world would be more badly lit..<\/p>\n<p>Let us all aspire to keep the world lit well.. and contribute our own particular color to the light&#8230;as not to make everyone look bad<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thu1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1870\" title=\"thu1\" src=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thu1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thu1.jpg 600w, http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thu1.jpg 300w, http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/thu1.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Go Thulium.. we love you<\/p>\n<p>love you too, sam<\/p>\n<p>-me<\/p>\n<p>Ps. On Saturday I&#8217;m going to jump in Lake Champlain in support of Vermont Special Olympics. if you&#8217;d like to sponsor me, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstgiving.com\/fundraiser\/john-cohn\/2011-burlington-penguin-plunge\">this link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes.. you just feel like Thulium.. .. Tonight we were looking at the table of the elements place mat that all three kids learned to eat solid foot above.. It&#8217;s a rather faded.. somewhat dated snapshot of the state\u00a0 of physical chemistry circa 1988 when Max was born. It stops demurely at 109 elements.. rather &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2011\/02\/04\/thursday-night-thulium\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">THursday night &#8211; Thulium<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-thulium"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1873,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions\/1873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}