Tuesday, September 27, 2016

[jucahlag] Polonide

The chalcogens get smellier as you go down down the periodic table: oxygen, sulfur, selenium, tellurium.

Tell a fictional story of the Marie and Pierre Curie being the first mortals to smell a polonium compound (organopolonide), then, as they vomit for (say) months due to the odor, regretting every decision they've ever made in life, especially taking up chemistry.  "You think it's a chacogen? (retch)"  "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a chalcogen. (retch)"

In reality, smelling polonium would have killed them due to its intense radioactivity.

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