I must say that chemistry was never my favorite subject in junior high or high school (chemistry in college? no way), but any subject that sometimes involved open flames and highly corrosive materials was okay in my book.

Did you ever question what some of the elements in the periodic table actually were?

I for one remember wondering about some of the elements I thought of as the “give up” elements (I’m looking at you Unnilseptium). What the heck is Unnilseptium? Unniloctium? Come on. It seemed like they were just tacked on to the end of the table because someone said “103 elements? I bet you can’t come up with 7 more.”

Well, Professor Martyn Poliakoff, who is most definitely channeling Einstein with his ‘do, teamed up with video journalist Brady Haran to put together a website where each element in the periodic table is a link to a Youtube video explaining that element.

Simple idea. Simple execution. Wondrous results.

The picture above? That’s unnilseptium. Duh!

VISIT SITE

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