The periodic table of poetry (Up to Molydenum now)
\nby cricketjeff on August 18, 2010.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved
\nFirst Hydrogen the lightest gas
\nThat makes up for its lack of mass
\nBy forming most of all we see
\nIn this or any galaxy
\nIn chemistry it isn’t placid
\nIts cation does the work of acid
\nIn bombs it leads to greater slaughter
\nBut most important it’s in water!<\/p>\n
Then Helium at number two
\nFinds very little it can do
\nInert in almost every way
\nSo I have little else to say<\/p>\n
Now Lithium that’s soft and bright
\nMakes alloys that are very light
\nIts salts can make your fireworks red
\nThere’s not much else needs to be said<\/p>\n
Beryllium has such toxic dust
\nThat special measures are a must
\nIt used to be used quite a lot
\nIn copper alloys that got hot
\nBut now we know it makes you ill
\nFew industries will use it still<\/p>\n
Boron’s always black and hard
\nAnd stuff you shouldn’t disregard
\nIn borax it will wash your eyes
\nIn fibres it’s a great surprise
\nA golf club or a lightweight tank
\nMay have this element to thank<\/p>\n
Carbon, of course, is here for life
\nAnd diamonds make the sharpest knife
\nIn pencils people call it lead
\nWhich shows they must be off their head
\nIt forms long chains, all on its own
\nAnd complex shapes that can be shown<\/p>\n
Nitrogen’s next, it’s bland and clear
\nAnd forms most of our atmosphere
\nAmmonia, and stuff for bombs
\nAnd fertilizer for your toms
\nAll need this elemental stuff
\nI’m pleased to say we have enough<\/p>\n
There’s oxygen at number eight
\nWe like it in its gaseous state
\nAlthough it lets our buildings burn
\nWe need it as we quickly learn
\nThe third most common stuff there is
\nIt gives much chemistry its fizz<\/p>\n
Fluorine is very bad for you
\nIt changes skin to useless goo
\nIn non-stick teflon it’s the part
\nThat mean adhesion cannot start
\nAlone reacts with anything
\nPerhaps the elemental king<\/p>\n
Neon gives an eerie glow
\nTo signs as all of you will know
\nSo noble in it’s chemistry
\nThere are no compounds you can see<\/p>\n
Sodium burns with yellow flame
\nIgnites in water what a game
\nYou can be sure it’s never damp
\nInside that eerie yellow lamp
\nWith chlorine it makes salt for chips
\nAnd’s softer than your fingertips<\/p>\n
Magnesium flashes into light
\nFew other flames are half as bright
\nIn alloys used in cars and planes
\nIt leads to unexpected gains
\nPlants put it into chlorophyll
\nWithout it you’d be very ill!<\/p>\n
Aluminium it’s called
\n(Americans will be appalled)
\nIt’s strong and light and forms a skin
\nThat stops corrosives getting in
\nLike all the rest it’s made in stars
\nWe use it in our planes and cars<\/p>\n
A tetravalent metalloid
\nIt seems nobody can avoid
\nThe modern world needs Silicon
\nWith clever patterns etched upon
\nAlthough these chips seem quite enough
\nIt gives us glass and other stuff<\/p>\n
Now phosphorus which has a glow
\nGives every safety match its go
\nIt’s used for flares and screening smoke
\nIts acid give the fizz to coke
\nSince it is in all life on Earth
\nYou know quite what the stuff is worth<\/p>\n
Now sulphur compounds often smell
\nAs brimstone it’s a sign of hell
\nA pretty yellow on its own
\nMore allotropes than any known
\nIn life it takes a major role
\nMakes dirty smoke when burning coal<\/p>\n
Next chlorine gas that’s murky green
\nIts use on troops was very mean
\nIt kills the bugs in swimming pools
\nIt’s found in many molecules
\nIn paint stripper and cleaning stuff
\nThat man has used more than enough<\/p>\n
The argon verse is hard for me
\nIt has so little chemistry
\nBut we may sometimes use this fact
\nAs filler so things won’t react<\/p>\n
Potassium has symbol K
\nAn element that likes to play
\nA soft and silvery metal which
\nReacts upon the slightest twitch
\nIt even burns in nitrogen
\nWhich can confuse unlearned men
\nWe need a fair bit to survive
\nIt’s part of everything alive.<\/p>\n
If you have written things with chalk
\nOr if you like to stand and walk
\nThen calcium is in your life
\nIts all around and use is rife
\nA carbonate is called limestone
\nIts phosphate makes up most of bone
\nIt furs your kettle, and your pipes
\nSo fuels a lot of plumbers gripes<\/p>\n
Transition metals form a block
\nWhose properties we’ll now unlock
\nFirst scandium is rather rare
\nHas just one use that I’m aware
\nIn aluminium alloys
\nThe aircraft industry employs<\/p>\n
Its strength for weight the highest known
\nWill be in many things you own
\nTitanium is common stuff
\nBut most rocks don’t contain enough
\nIt’s oxide is the white in paint
\nSo many uses that you best
\nGo look it up, I’ll be impressed<\/p>\n
Vanadium’s another one
\nI hope you find this journey fun
\nIt’s used in steels for tools and such
\nThere’s some in you, but not too much<\/p>\n
You all know Chromium by shine
\nSo plated parts can look quite fine
\nIts compounds come in every hue
\nPerhaps we’ve time to list a few
\nThe very orange dichromate
\nCan change its oxidation state
\nAnd then a deep and dirty green
\nWill be the colour you have seen
\nMakes rubies red and mauves untamed
\nYou’ll see how chromium was named<\/p>\n
So now give Manganese a turn
\nA metal that we cannot spurn
\nEssential to the life we live
\nWith many other gifts to give
\nYou need it to make stainless steel
\nIt can give glass a “rose appeal”
\nSome feminists may whisper “please
\nCan we now have Womanganese?”<\/p>\n
It’s Iron next which had an age
\nThat set us on this modern stage
\nA revolution came to be
\nIn Britain’s iron industry
\nProducing steel that changed the world
\nAnd empire banners soon unfurled
\nYou can’t make tanks or guns or planes
\nWithout this metal’s famous strains
\nIt’s also part of me and you
\n(Anaemia should give a clue)
\nThe final fuel of dying stars
\nIt gives the rusty hue to Mars
\nOf all that’s underneath the sky
\nIt has the stablest nuclei!<\/p>\n
Who hasn’t heard of Cobalt blue
\nPerhaps it’s nature’s finest hue
\nProsthetic hips or so I’m told
\nNeed cobalt or they can’t be sold
\nMagnetic metals and in planes
\n(In super alloy turbine vanes)
\nWe need it too for vitamins
\nWithout B12 nobody wins!<\/p>\n
A metal with so many uses
\nDoesn’t need to make excuses
\nWe put it into coins and steels
\nIn forks and spoons and alloy wheels
\nA catalyst for many things
\nAnd helps to toughen wedding rings
\nSo buy some Nickel mining shares
\nWe need it for so many wares<\/p>\n
Ten thousand years ago, or so
\nA copper pendant went on show
\nThough meteroic iron and gold
\nAre many dozen times as old
\nWe think that copper was refined
\nBefore most other things were mined
\nIt’s soft and yellow when it’s pure
\nBut Zinc or Tin effect a cure
\nAnd Bronze age people found this out
\nIt gave their weapons added clout.
\nA great conductor (not of bands)
\nIt’s useful in so many hands.<\/p>\n
I wonder if you ever think
\nAbout the ways that we use zinc
\nIn galvanising iron and steel
\nIn sheets on roofs (that bad guys steel)
\nDeodorants and fancy paints
\nAnd statues of some famous saints
\nIt protects iron exposed to seas
\nA lot is used in batteries<\/p>\n
Pure Gallium just loves to melt
\nThe strangest metal ever felt
\nA first as hard as any plate
\nThen suddenly in liquid state
\nIts arsenide makes diodes glow
\nIts nitride puts bright blue on show
\nThermometers with lots of range
\nMakes other metals turn quite strange<\/p>\n
Germanium is not a flower
\nIts used to capture solar power
\nTransistors, diodes lots of stuff
\nFibre optics all that guff
\nThese days it isn’t used as much
\nReplaced by silicon and such<\/p>\n
If you have read detective tales
\nYou’ll know that Arsenic derails
\nThe lives of victims by the score
\nOf poisoners we should deplore
\nNapoleon, some think, was killed
\nBy poison his wallpaper spilled
\nThe ink contained some “Paris Green”
\n(Perhaps he just missed Josephine)
\nComputer makers use a lot
\nAnd strangely some is in lead shot.<\/p>\n
Selenium can make things stink
\nIt’s more important than you think
\nWe have to eat a little bit
\nTo keep out bodies fighting fit
\nReplacing lead in plumbers brass
\nAnd making reddish tones in glass<\/p>\n
You won’t spill Bromine if you’re wise
\nIts caustic vapours hurt the eyes
\nIt’s liquid and it’s reddish brown
\nIn compounds it slows fires down
\nIt’s put in lenses and some pools
\nBut other uses now break rules<\/p>\n
A noble gas called Krypton’s next
\nAnother verse that leaves me vexed
\nIn discharge lamps it’s almost white
\nYou’ll see it on large signs at night
\nIt will react with fluorine, though
\nThat’s not a lot to put on show!<\/p>\n
Rubidium adds a purple flash
\nIn fireworks that bang and crash
\nExplodes in water, burns in air
\nSo handle it with utmost care!<\/p>\n
In TV tubes to stop X-rays
\n(A use that’s rather rare these days)
\nIt’s isotopes near Chernobyl
\nHave made a lot of people ill
\nBut Strontium cures cancer too
\nTo give this element its due<\/p>\n
Next Yttrium, with symbol Y
\nAn element that’s rather shy
\nIn other metals’ ores it hides
\n(particularly the Lanthanides)
\nIn garnets and in new alloys
\nThis metal now makes quite a noise.<\/p>\n
Zirconium is not that rare
\nAnd zircons turn up everywhere
\nAs tiny bubbles locked n rocks
\nWhich give us natures oldest clocks
\nIn some old flash bulbs burned so bright
\nIt gave photographers their light
\nAnd round the necks of gorgeous girls
\nZirconias far outshine pearls!<\/p>\n
Niobium has changed its name
\nColumbium should own the fame
\nBut either name performs quite well
\nIn alloys such as inconel
\nIn jets and rockets takes the heat
\nNo other metal has it beat
\nAnd some alloys when very cold
\nAre superconductors I’ve been told<\/p>\n
In austenitic stainless steels
\nAnd as disulphide greasing wheels
\nMolybdenum is all around
\nSo many uses have been found
\nMost living things contain a tad
\nWithout it you’d be feeling bad<\/p>\n
Author notes
\nThis is very much a work in progress, I’d like to get it published after it is
\neventually finished.<\/p>\n
Out of order stanzas here until I get to them
\n[Posts%20by%20cricketjeff%202_files\/happy.gif]<\/p>\n
Technetium has no stable form
\nBut still has roles it can perform
\nIn tracers it helps fight disease<\/p>\n
On almost every time it’s seen
\nPraseodymium makes green
\nBut being such a curious fellow
\nIt’s used to make ceramics yellow!<\/p>\n
For MRIs your blood may be infused
\nAnd Gadolinium is often used
\nIt’s also found in radiation shields
\nReduction harmful thermal neutron yields<\/p>\n
With Copernicium I’ll end
\nThe rest are up to you my friend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The periodic table of poetry (Up to Molydenum now) by cricketjeff on August 18, 2010.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved First Hydrogen the lightest gas That makes up for its lack of mass By forming most of all we see In this or any galaxy In chemistry it isn’t placid Its cation does the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9742,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4715","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6794,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4715\/revisions\/6794"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}