this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
1 points (100.0% liked)

Science

4745 readers
14 users here now

General discussions about "science" itself

Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:

https://lemmy.ml/c/science

https://beehaw.org/c/science

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

But all the other elements are -iums as well, so aluminium makes more sense.

Regards someone from neither country

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But all the other elements are -iums

Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus...

There are many elements that don't end in - ium. The rule is that whoever discovers the element gets to name it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

We have a draw.

The first name proposed for the metal to be isolated from alum was alumium, which Davy suggested in an 1808 article on his electrochemical research, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

All of them? Are you sure?

On an unrelated note, apparently the Eagles “Their Greatest Hits” album was certified 38x Platinium.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh no, not all of them. I'm just too lazy to write a more accurate sentence.

-ium is a commonly used Latin suffix for elements. The name for platin cones from spanish "platina", 'little silver'.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

There’s also molybdenum, lanthanum, and tantalum. “ium” is not a hard and fast rule.