> No, I’m being flippand: Osmium, Lanthanum, Freon, Hydrogen, Iron, and
> Lawrencium.

Osmium?  Have you ever worked with osmium compounds?  They stink.

Seriously- I worked with a fellow who was making organoosmium
complexes, and any time he’d make his starting material, I’d spend the
day in the library because the stench was overpowering.  I’d rather
work with trimethylphosphine, or pyridine.

And freon’s not an element.

>-Aut

As an amateur gardener, I get three by reflex action: Nitrogen,
Phosphorous, and Potassium. I guess I should add Hydrogen, Carbon, and
Oxygen to get six.
ObSF: the short-short $1.98, by Arthur Porges, in which a man earns a
favour from a (very small) god, anything he likes up to the value of
$1.98.

(I read it in the very good compilation: 100 Great Fantasy Short Short
Stories").

Spoiler 1
Spoiler 2
Spoiler 3
Spoiler 4
Spoiler 5
Spoiler 6
Spoiler 7
Spoiler 8
Spoiler 9
Spoiler 10
Spoiler 11
Spoiler 12
Spoiler 13
Spoiler 14
Spoiler 15
Spoiler 16
Spoiler 17
Spoiler 18
Spoiler 19
Spoiler 20
Spoiler 21
Spoiler 22
Spoiler 23
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Spoiler 25
Spoiler 26
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Spoiler 28
Spoiler 29
Spoiler 30
Spoiler 31
Spoiler 32
Spoiler 33
Spoiler 34

The last paragraph of the story is

The clipping itself, a mere filler, read: "At present prices, the value
of the chemical elements which make up the human body is only $1.98."
—
A.G.McDowell

"Divij Rao" <divij_urdb…@yahoo.co.in> wrote in message

news:1174741267.963901.230590@l75g2000hse.googlegroups.com…

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -

> my favourite are:

> Osmium

> Cesium

> Uranium

> Aurum

> Francium

> Radium

> All have special properties… a good interface to
> share ideas…. any comment on these selections
> will be appreciated.

> i and Autymn still await this "freon". what is it?

Fluorinated hydrocarbons.  Take a light hydrocarbon you may know
and substitute fluorine for one or more hydrogens.

David A. Smith

Osmium

Cesium

Uranium

Aurum

Francium

Radium

All have special properties… a good interface to share ideas…. any
comment on these selections will be appreciated.

i and Autymn still await this "freon". what is it?
thanx

Regards,
Divij

nu…@bid.nes <Alien8…@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Mar 23, 8:57 am, "Autymn D. C." <lysde…@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> Pick at most six.  Here are mine: rhenium, tin, bismuth, caesium,
>> thorium, beryllium.
>  I also vaguely remember some claims that either Tc or As would make
>wonderfully light, strong steel alloys except for the minor half-life
>issue.

Technetium is an implausibly good corrosion inhibitor; you can keep
normal steel in 50-micromolar pertechnetate solution for twenty years
and it doesn’t rust.

I like scandium, gallium, and most of the middle row of the transition
elements, particularly the noble ones; every so often I check to see
if anyone has made the Doc Smith superalloys analogous to steels but
based on ruthenium and niobium rather than iron and vanadium, and if
they have Doc Smith super-properties.  I have samples of gallium,
tantalum, molybdenum and diamond on my mantlepiece; scandium’s a bit
expensive and the rare earths aren’t really quite air-stable enough
for me to want to have lumps of them around the house.

I work in crystallography, where almost all the heavy metals turn up
at some stage thanks to despairing ‘soak the protein crystal in
solutions of hexammineeverything and see if it binds’ experiments, and
almost all the light metals turn up for actual biological reasons,
except scandium and gallium.  Looking at an ion channel full of
thallium makes it very clear why the stuff is so toxic.

Tom

> Pick at most six.  Here are mine: rhenium, tin, bismuth, caesium,
> thorium, beryllium.

  Interesting choices. Mine:

  Ag

  Os

  Ir

  Pt

  Au

  (money metals)

  I can’t decide on a sixth; I read that Ho has "unusual magnetic
properties" but can’t seem to find details.

  I also vaguely remember some claims that either Tc or As would make
wonderfully light, strong steel alloys except for the minor half-life
issue.

  Just kidding. Favorite elements are those that I can eat (C, H, O,
N). Traces don’t count. ;>)

  Mark L. Fergerson

> Pick at most six.  Here are mine: rhenium, tin, bismuth, caesium,
> thorium, beryllium.

Lutetium.

Not only is the name cool, but like me, it is the heaviest of the rare
earths.

Dangerous Bill

<spamvor…@bad.example.net> wrote:
> but it’s intelligent enough to spell properly.

Does that mean that dictionaries are intelligent while most people are not?
— Fermez le Bush–about two years to go.

>>> "Autymn D. C." wrote…
>>> Idiot troll.
>> Actually, it’s been bugging us for a while over in rasfs (trimmed). My
>> general belief is that the reponses aren’t intelligent enough for a
>> troll, and it’s likely an Eliza-clone. Everybody sing with me, "And
>> you and me, are free to be, content-free…"

> Correction: Your belief isn’t intelligent yenoh for trollspotting, nor
> can it spot intelligent inputs and corrections when they strike your
> client.

but it’s intelligent enough to spell properly.  unlike you.

> On Mar 23, 3:44 pm, Salmon Egg <salmon…@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> > On 3/23/07 8:57 AM, in article
> > 1174665453.479695.106…@b75g2000hsg.googlegroups.com, "Autymn D. C."
> > <lysde…@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > Pick at most six.  Here are mine: rhenium, tin, bismuth, caesium,
> > > thorium, beryllium.
> > This proves that stupid questions do indeed exist.

You can’t prove a thing.

> Yes, but it’s far better than most of his posts, so why not humour

mest
humor

> him?

There is no him, blind illiterate cretin.