Why Isn’t It “Platinium”?

The majority of chemical elements have names ending in “-ium”. In British English, we also have “aluminium” as opposed to the American “aluminum”, but we also have “tantalum” and “platinum”, so oddly the usual “-ium” ending has a couple of exceptions, as is common with spelling, grammar and word formations. The periodic table generally shows the order of discovery in how the names are formed. The older elements tend to have less regularly-formed names such as “phosphorus” and “antimony”, then after a certain point several half-hearted attempts to regularise them (e.g. “hydrogen”, “nitrogen”, “oxygen”) ensued, but it’s all rather haphazard.

The individual groups sometimes have some kind of order imposed on them. All the halogens, even the transuranic tennessine, end in “-ine” and no other element does. All the noble gases except helium end in “-on”, but this is rather spoilt by the names “carbon” and “silicon”. In a way, it makes sense that helium should have a different ending because it isn’t a typical noble gas, having only two electrons in its sole orbital as opposed to eight, as the others have. Incidentally, the noble gases are easy to contemplate in physical terms because they all consist straightforwardly of single atoms with regularly increasing weight. Oganesson, which is a transuranic noble “gas”, has a melting point of 52°C, but it can’t really exist in bulk. It would, I’m guessing, be a non-metal and therefore an oddity being so heavy and yet not a metal.

There have been two systems of nomenclature for elements which are either not yet discovered or unfamiliar. One of them imposed Sanskrit numeral prefixes, though only “eka-” and “dvi-“, i.e. one and two. This was where there were gaps in the periodic table, so for example gallium was originally called “ekaäluminium”, or perhaps “ekaäluminum” because the predicted metal hadn’t been discovered yet. This system is obsolete as all the holes in this portion of the table have now been filled. There is also the issue of what happens towards the end of the periodic table, where new elements have been discovered on a semi-regular basis. This system uses Greek and Latin numerals as prefixes for “-ium”, as in “ununoctium” for oganesson, but the numbers are chosen so as not to produce ambiguous abbreviations. They consist of the atomic number in decimal and yield three-letter symbols rather than the more usual two- or one-letter ones, which makes sense because these elements don’t meaningfully participate in chemistry owing to their instability. It would of course be possible to name all the elements in this way, producing a word like “nulnulhexium”, or possibly just “hexium”, for carbon, and “septoctium” for platinum, but this is unnecessary. One thing which somewhat bothers me about these names is that they use the decimal base rather than something which seems more fundamental such as hexadecimal or binary, or perhaps a base which matches the length of the sequences in the periodic table itself, which would give the elements systematic names matching their groups. They’re not as neat as they might villa .

The ending “-um” is clearly straightforwardly from the Latin neuter second declension, and there are also the “-on” endings from the same Greek declension. It seems to have connotations of “inanimate thing” in this context, so for example gallium is “Gaul thing”, i.e. the thing named after the country of France. There doesn’t seem to have been the kind of drive to neutrality which exists in astronomical naming. For instance, the constellation Scutum used to be called Scutum Sobieskii, but the second part was dropped, I presume because it refers to Poland, but polonium is still called that. This location naming business has led to the Swedish village of Ytterby, population 3 000, giving its name to no fewer than four elements (ytterbium, terbium, yttrium and erbium) due to the discovery of a dark, heavy rock in the area. Other elements are named after Stockholm and Scandinavia in their own way (holmium and thulium) for the same reason, and there’s also scandium. This seems disproportionate.

You will be aware though that the majority of elements ending in “-um” have an I before that ending, so the question arises of why there are exceptions. Aluminium is the oddest one of these because it varies according to American and British usage. The metal was discovered by Humphry Davy by electrolysis from alumina, which is aluminium oxide, and he originally called it “alumium”. In 1812, he changed the name to “aluminum” but this was difficult to maintain because of its lack of conformity. It got adopted by the general public in the US but not by American chemists, whilst in the Commonwealth it was uniformly “aluminium”. Canada, though, uses “aluminum”, as it’s generally more American than the rest of the Commonwealth, and also more American than Ireland come to think of it. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommends “aluminium”.

Even so, there are four other elements like this, namely molybdenum, lanthanum, tantalum and platinum, and these always use that form. All of the other “-iums” always use that form too. Platinum was the first element to be given a name ending in “-um” officially after discovery, so it could be that the convention of inserting an I was yet to be established. All of the elements discovered prior to it ending in “-um” in Latin have no I: plumbum, aurum, argentum, ferrum, hydrargyrum. However, “zinc” is cadmiæ. Hence there are two other questions. Firstly, why did they start sticking an I in in the first place? Following that, why are there later discoveries without an I? Molybdenum was discovered before they started putting it in, and the first one with an I is tellurium. Tantalum was named long after it was discovered and lanthanum was discovered quite late. It’s distinctive in that like actinium it’s the name of a whole series of similar elements. Tantalum is presumably called that because Tantalus wasn’t called “Tantalius”.

Hence it does make sense, historically, that platinum has no I. Platinum has strong symbolic value compared to the other platinum metals, which are relatively obscure, being used, of course, for the platinum anniversaries and the jubilee, the only one in the history of any of the home nations, so it’s appropriately rare. It also turns up in platinum discs and platinum blond hair. There is, however, no “Platinum Age” or a platinum medal. The latter is easy to understand, since it would involve disrupting an established system and render previous gold medals invalid, and the older version of the age system was thought up before platinum was known in the Old World. It was, however, known in the New, being found in river deposits in South America before the Christian Era. It’s one of the densest and least reactive metals, has a very high melting point and is very hard. In spite of all these qualities, pre-Columbian artifacts made of platinum do exist, such as a mask and jewellery, occurring in present day Columbia and Ecuador.

Platinum is actually the most widespread platinum metal. Osmium and iridium, the heaviest elements of all, are not widely found on the surfaces of planets because they sink to the centre during their worlds’ molten phases. However, being an even-numbered element, platinum is more abundant than some of the others by virtue of that alone. Palladium is considerably rarer and osmium and iridium are mainly associated with their density rather than their use as precious metals. Osmium is the rarest precious metal of all, and also the densest, and is used in alloys to make pen nibs and in electron microscopy. It slowly oxidises in air and the fumes it gives off can cause blindness and lung damage. Iridium is well-known as the sign that non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out by the Chicxulub Impactor, as small celestial objects do not exhibit the stratification of larger ones due to their low gravity and often low temperature. Ruthenium, rhodium and rhenium are also platinum metals. They’re all useful as catalysts, famously in the case of platinum itself. The anticancer drug cisplatin contains it, and works like most anticancer drugs by interfering with DNA replication.

It may be just me, but I consider platinum blond hair as gendered in this culture. I’ve never been a fan of fair hair, on me or others, in æsthetic terms, but the technique for producing the effect is academically interesting.

Of course, the reason I’ve chosen to blog about this today is the fact that it’s the Jubilee, but I wanted to do so in a way which didn’t partake of any controversy between royalist and republican sentiments, so here it is.

The Platinum Jubilee

Well, it was either that or a portrait of the Queen wasn’t it?

You probably know, because I’ve said it on here before, that I’m kind of technically republican but really don’t feel that strongly about it. I’ve read and watched lots of pro-republican propaganda and to be honest the emphasis on the monarchy being expensive calls to mind a lot of other things which are a much bigger waste, and I find it hard to motivate myself to care. I’ve said before that arguing about whether these nations should have an elected head of state or a hereditary one is like arguing about what colour the handle of the executioner’s axe should be. Having said that, there are many reasons for abolishing the monarchy. For instance, right now it means the monarch is almost certainly going to be White and until recent changes in the law probably also male, and if they aren’t heterosexual they’re probably going to have to be in the closet because of the succession, and none of those things are good. Looking further into the millennium, assuming a persistent monarchy, we’ll probably have three kings, assuming regnal names are the same as birth names: Charles III, William V and George VII, and there probably won’t be another queen until at least the 22nd Christian century. But one excellent reason for abolishing the monarchy is for the sake of the people subjected to it, the Royals themselves, because psychologically it takes its toll on them. George VI’s health seems to have been quite seriously damaged by his being king for example. Knowing that you will only ever have one job in the long term and are unable to do various things with your life must feel like a gilded cage to them, and it probably feels like much of what you do before you become monarch is just dabbling with life in full knowledge that it actually doesn’t amount to much. I can see the value of the likes of the Prince’s Trust and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and yes, I’m talking about the family rather than the men born to be King here, but still, they must have to work very hard to infuse their lives with meaning.

Having said all that, there are other aspects to the Queen’s life and rôles. As well as being monarch, she’s head of state, not only of this country but also many others, such as Canada, and in a way it’s just like having a president, in that she fulfils a similar position. As a child, I noticed that foreign banknotes often had an ornamental frame on them which appeared to be blank, and being from a monarchy I thought these windows, which are in fact there to display the watermark clearly, were supposed to symbolise the fact that the country issuing them was a republic. People from republics disabused me of this notion and said they didn’t generally think of their countries as lacking a monarch or feel the need to indicate their absence. Now we have windows on our own banknotes of course, but not because we’re a republic.

The Queen has a long list of rôles, including head of the armed forces, and also head of the Church of England. Some would see these two as contradictory. However, having been an active member of the Anglican church in the past, I did genuinely feel that whatever else might be true, and whatever other political views I might had, the Queen was the head of my denomination, and this was significant. She seems to live her life in a Christian way and her faith seems to be important to her. Although it’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking they’re just like us in some ways, although of course we all share humanity, it does create a connection between us in the sense that she had this rôle thrust upon her, probably in a way which she perceives to be the hand of God, and has constantly been labouring under the responsibility since 1952, with the help of her Maker. And I can relate to that! I don’t feel she is merely in an unearned position of privilege or has a cushy life. In a theoretical situation where we became a republic, it’s still possible that she would’ve retained her position as head of a church, and being female, a woman who took on that function four decades before there were any women priests. That’s not insignificant.

If you do the calculations, it looks like the Queen and Charles will die in the same year. If she lives as long as her mother, she’s likely to die in 2027 at the age of 101. Her four predecessors, Charles’s male ancestors, died at the ages of 68, 70, 78 and 56. Her heir, born 1948, would die in 2026 if he lives to the same age as the former Edward VIII, and to be honest that particular “king” may have lived longer because he was able to go off and do what he wanted rather than stay as head of state. That said, life expectancy is longer in this country than it used to be, and there are alleged to be connections between tobacco smoking and each of these men’s deaths. Charles gave up smoking when he was eleven. Consequently, just on these bare stats, which fail to take much into consideration, it very much looks like he will never be King.

There’s a pattern in the way monarchs go in England. Long reigns are often followed by a flurry of short ones due to the fact that successors tend to be older by the time they get there. Also, unsurprisingly there are many more kings than queens, but proportionately the average length of a queen’s reign is longer than that of a king. Since William the Conqueror there have been three dozen kings and eight queens, if Lady Jane Grey and Matilda are included. The average length of queen’s reigns is bumped up by the two outliers, Victoria and Elizabeth II Of England. Monarchs who have managed not to reign without being executed, namely George III and Edward VIII, tend to live longer. I think we should bear this in mind because it shows the strain being monarch puts on people. It really isn’t a bed of roses.

At this point, provided Sumerian king lists are not taken seriously, nobody has been a monarch anywhere in the world or at any time in history longer than the current Queen. Although she is a figurehead, she probably also acts as a source of wisdom and experience for governments and would be able to do this to a greater extent than anyone else in history. She’s seen fourteen British prime ministers for example, and is not entirely hands-off in her rôle, but of course we don’t really know what’s going on with her. Eventually one may get to don the mantle of respectability simply by virtue of one’s age and length of time in office, but presumably she has reflected on the nature of successive governments. I do wonder how seriously some of her prime ministers have taken her though.

Another aspect of this is the nature of anniversary naming. On the whole the sequence could be expected to be something like: iron, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, with other interspersed “substances” in between. Sarada and I have had our silver wedding anniversary already, which makes me feel old. There are two diamonds, one at five dozen and one at seventy-five, so Queen Victoria was able to have a diamond jubilee but that was that. They have latterly been modernised, and are mainly seen to apply to marriages so they tend to have things like “electrical appliances” in them. The original is the golden jubilee, which was instituted in the Bible, consisting of seven times seven years plus one, due to the ancient Hebrews having no concept of zero. The Golden Jubilee was honoured more in the breach than the observance, but it’s a brilliant idea. All debts were forgiven and slaves and prisoners freed. I think there was also redistribution of land, in order to prevent the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the wealthy few. We could definitely do with something like that.

That’s it really. The official anniversary of the accession is today, but the celebrations will be in June.