I was crawling around the parts place that the guy who’s restoring the Tucker has just bought, and stumbled across a couple of boxes labelled “Firestone Supreme Spark Plugs with Polonium (radioactive).” These things are obviously ancient, and I’m fairly certain that the polonium (WTH is that, anyway?) was probably put in there as a marketing gimmick, but I’m wondering what the logic behind it might of been. And are these things still “hot”? (I know I’m in no danger from the amount of time I spent around them, but the only person who’d want those things is a collector of really ancient car parts, and I’m wondering what would happen if the post office got wind of the contents of the boxes.)
Polonium spark plugs. They almost certainly aren’t radioactive to any significant degree anymore, given the short half life. Even if they are, Po 210 is an alpha-emitter. Alpha particles are blocked by the othermost layer of skin; even a sheet of paper can block them.
Woah great find there Q.E.D. !!!
Gee, I wonder if anyone ever made americium mufflers, actinium manifolds, nobelium rear view mirrors, etc?
Tuckerfan
I’m sure you could easily find a lot of general information about polonium using any search engine. However, I thought it worth mentioning it is named polonium for the country Poland. It was discovered by Marie Curie and she named it for her native country.
And just for the heck of it, there’s Francium, Germanium, Americium.
And elements named for other geographical areas: Scandium, Californium, Europium, Berkelium.
And planets: Uranium, Neptunium, Plutonium, Krypton.
Tuckerfan, I am the very proud owner of a complete set of 4 Firestone Polonium spark plugs, in their original boxes and with all the original inserts. I will post a pic of them on the UnaBoard later today for you if you like. They’re sitting in my curio cabinet on the “radioactive” shelf, even though they most likely are not radioactive (don’t even ask what else is on the “radioactive” shelf, you don’t want to know…)
Q.E.D.'s link is very good and describes what they were intended to do.
You wouldn’t happen to have a flux capacitor, would you?
Did we forget Mercury?
Alright, pictures of my Polonium spark plugs.
http://www.coalgoddess.net/files/Pictures/0512/Polonium1.jpg
Close-up of the electrode. Can you see the 100 or so atoms of Polonium remaining?
http://www.coalgoddess.net/files/Pictures/0512/Polonium2.jpg
Courtesy of Una, Mistress of Stuff Almost No One Else is Interested In…
Heh. I know that calendar! I just got one a few days ago, too. And FTR, I do want to know what else is on the “radiocative” shelf. I assume it’s more interesting than the guts of a smoke detector or an old watch dial. Maybe parts of a crashed Russian satellite?
Mine came while I was in England.
A few variations of uranium minerals (nice yellow ones too), some radium, and a couple of thorium minerals.
Don’t forget Yterbyium and Terbium (something like that), both named for the same town of Yterby in, I think, Sweden. If I weren’t so lazy I would find out the proper spelling and location. What about Germanium? Oh yes, Berkelium.
It might be noted that electrodes for GTAW/TIG welding are rarely pure Tungsten, they usually have a small percentage of another metal. Typically this has been Thorium which is mildly radioactive. It’s also a contaminant risk because electrodes have to be ground to a point when used so Ceruim alloy electrodes have become more popular.
I wonder just how much Polonium is in those spark plugs?
Why, yes we did.
And I suppose the “Rare Earths”, are collectively named after, uh, Earth.
Nope, the Rare Earths are the Lanthanides, named for the element Lanthanum, which in turn is supposedly from the Greek lanthanein, to lie hidden. However, four of the Rare Earth elements are named after a single quarry.
Partial credit. In addition to the lanthanides, the rare earth elements also usually include Scandium and Yttrium. On the other hand, promethium (a lanthanide) is not normally considered a rare earth, since it is not found in nature. The term “earth”, by the way, is an obsolete term once used to mean “oxide”–since metals dug of the Earth are often in the form of an oxide.
I learned something here. I thought Polonium was the guy who said “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, and to thine own self be true.” That quote led to the joke name of financial advisor Nora Lenderbee.
Also they are not “rare” at all, as elements go. They can be difficult to refine due to their extreme chemical similarity to one another, which makes them expensive-ish, as it were, but most of them are a lot more common than, say, gold or platinum.
I recently came across this page: Elementymology & Elements Multidict, which has probably more than you want to know about the etymology of the element’s names.
As far as astronomical origins, Cerium was named after the asteroid Ceres and Helium was named after the sun.
Strontium was named after the town of Strontian, Scotland, as you can see from the picture on the front page of that site. Lutetium is named after Paris, France. I think there may a couple more epotopes[sup]1[/sup] (things named after geographic names) among the elements but I forget what they are off-hand.
[sup]1[/sup] A word coined by yours truly, but I which I rarely get to use.
The ones I saw were in better shape! 
Still pretty nifty that the things have survived so long.
from here
to the tune of ‘Yesterday’
Ytterby
What a fascinating place to be
Elementary discovery
They found a load in Ytterby
Yttrium
Gadolinium and Terbium
Also Holmium and Erbium
And Thulium, Ytterbium
Y, Gd, Tb, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb
Seven elements, all were found in Ytterby
Ytterby
Has a very rare geology
As Holmes says “elementary”
It’s quite a place, is Ytterby