Ruthenium. The chemical romance.

Just call her Ru.

Hello everyone! Welcome once again to the temple of knowledge that practically no one cares about. Have you noticed the big fat red 3D awesome box to the right of this post with the atomic number and the molecular mass And the chemical symbol of Ruthenium? More importantly, have you ever even heard of this element?

For at least 4 years of our lives, most of use have seen a periodic table with a whole lot of elements. Some of you might even be able to quote certain elements from the periodic table such as Iron(Fe), Helium(He) and even Unununbium(UuB). By the way, if you could quote Unununbium, there is something very very wrong with you.

But then, in all these four years have we ever seen this poor but extremely useful element? Here are some “fun” facts about Ruthenium.

1. It was a very rare element. It was found 3 times and ‘lost’ 2 times.

2. It is one of the six rarest elements on earth.

Ruthenium-106(an isotope) is used to treat some forms of eye cancer. The main element of ruthenium is commercially used to make alloys with expensive metals such as platinum. Ruthenium makes the alloyed metal hard, and resistant to rusting (almost 100 times more resistant) and ionisation (basically means corrosion but in a more complex manner). It is also used as electrical contacts and for creation of some jewellery and medical instruments.

Of course I am sure you are already bored by all that info on Ruthenium. You would be all like “What the heck just am I reading this for?”. Or better yet you skipped to this paragraph. But really, do you ever wonder why there is so much information in the world which is not being used? This isn’t even limited to just chemistry. Even some words in the dictionary like the word “Aglet” just lies there redundant because most people haven’t even seen or heard that word before. Yet I kid you not, EVERYONE has seen an aglet before.

Personally I feel that although having this much information lying around in the world is a good thing, efforts should be taken to actually highlight these random pieces of useful information. The education system of today focuses way to much on the ‘essential’ knowledge often leaving the other ‘not very relevant’ to be slowly forgotten. Much like the dusty old book on the shelf of the rich man which is there to show he is ‘smart’ when in fact it has never been opened.

1000 poor books sitting on the wall.
(Original: www.missionvictoria.com)

Oh well whatever it is, you have now been enlightened. Thanks for reading. All hail information no one cares about. =D