Popular Science is the only magazine that I subscribe to these days. Conveniently, it has a web site with a generous amount of content.
When I receive a new issue, I eagerly read a good portion of it over the first couple of days, and will often find an in-depth article to be worthy of considerable scrutiny. After I've read most of it, though, the magazine goes on the pile-- though they are often dragged out to revisit some interesting tidbit.
A couple of months ago, I picked up the then-current May issue after a couple of weeks of ignoring it, and began to read an article which had escaped my notice the first time around. The article contended that online auction venue ebay is "the most potent force" in do-it-yourself science. A logical claim, as the author explains how otherwise expensive and/or hard to acquire scientific equipment and chemicals can be had with a little digging on ebay. Specific examples of items and suppliers are given.
A woman in England who supplies me with samples of hafnium, for example: One day I get an e-mail saying she's found a great lump of it lying around the house. The next day I get another saying she's misplaced that one but while searching for it has come across another, even bigger lump. What a fabulous house that must be!
By that point, I was quite certain that I liked the way this person thinks. The wonder of scientific pursuits is captivating to me. Additionally, hafnium has always been one of my favorite elements-- it seemed to be largely unknown and underappreciated, despite possessing interesting and useful properties. What's this, you ask? Finding an underdog among the chemical elements? Well, yes. I finally realized on August 16th or 17th of last year that I have a misplaced sense of egalitarianism.
Anyway, I finally got around to checking who had written such entusiastic words, and it was Theodore Gray, builder of the Periodic Table Table. Ah. That certainly explained the kid-in-a-candy-store attitude toward elements. I then discovered that he has a regular column in Popular Science, entitled "Gray Matter." And to think I had read a few of the previous monthly columns without realizing who had written them... That particular month, it was about using arc melting technology (based on the common arc welder) to melt tungsten, which famously has the highest melting point of any metal. ...and is, of course, therefore one of my very favorite elements.
Posted by Mitch at July 9, 2004 11:50 PM