# Most Useless Element **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 4, 2001, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763 "2001-12-04T02:41:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/1 "2001-12-04T02:41:34Z")
Inspired by the [What is Palladium used for?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=102327) thread, I wondered: what is the most useless or least used element? I add the qualifier that it has to be obtainable in gram quantities, and stable enough to exist for a meaningful period of time. So technetium or promethium are allowable but francium is not. ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/2 "2001-12-04T02:48:44Z")
I would venture to say Rubidium. It is highly reactive and is not (to my knowledge) used in lasers. Seems kinda worthless unless you atom-smash it into Strontium. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/3 "2001-12-04T02:53:20Z")
I will contribute a fun interactive periodic table for folks to play with–er, to assist them in making their selection. [http://www.chemicalelements.com/](http://www.chemicalelements.com/) I think I will choose–radon, because although it is one of the “noble gases”, all it seems to be used for nowadays is to scare people into buying radon detectors. ---
**Author:** ![the\_duke\_69](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/48db29/32.png) [@the\_duke\_69](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_duke_69)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/4 "2001-12-04T03:04:14Z")
Einsteinium there ar no uses for this element! It is the most useless element. ---
**Author:** ![WEW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@WEW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WEW)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/5 "2001-12-04T03:05:11Z")
I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t remember the last time I knowingly used Tantalum. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/6 "2001-12-04T03:07:20Z")
Damn! Having worked a lot with the alkali metals, I was going to say Francium! Then you disqualified it at the start! How about something like Praesodymium? Aside from stoichiometric lasers and the odd eramic, I dont know of anything it’s good for. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/7 "2001-12-04T03:12:07Z")
Is carbon used for anything? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/8 "2001-12-04T03:27:13Z")
You can navigate through the uses on [http://www.webelements.com](http://www.webelements.com) and they list a LOT of strange uses. Unfortunately, that site seems to be slowed to an utter crawl at the moment (too many people from here looking for useless elements?). To give you an example, I thought of praseodymium, too, and find this curious fact: > [@](#): > > Misch metal, used in making cigarette lighters, contains about 5% praseodymium metal. What is so all-fired unique about the requirements for cigarette lighters that you will use an alloy of a rare earth metal to make them? I think we should disallow elements which don’t occur naturally on the Earth’s surface, useful or not, perhaps disallow all radioactive elements. BTW, the OP said “available in gram quantities”, and I have my doubts that you could obtain a gram of Einsteinium, even should you want to. Radon is used, BTW, in earthquake detection, and for some forms of radiotherapy. Happy hunting. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/9 "2001-12-04T03:31:50Z")
More specifically, the misch metal alloy is pyrophoric and is used in the flints. ---
**Author:** ![FortMarcy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9de053/32.png) [@FortMarcy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FortMarcy)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/10 "2001-12-04T03:48:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > \*\*Is carbon used for anything? \*\* Some guy tried to tell me that pencils use carbon to write. Everyone knows they lead. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/11 "2001-12-04T03:50:12Z")
Astatine. It’s only got a half-life of 8.3 hours. There’s only a tiny amount of it in existence on the earth at any time. What can you do with it? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/12 "2001-12-04T04:13:27Z")
Isn’t plutonium useless? It’s not like we really _use_ our nuclear arsenal… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/13 "2001-12-04T04:33:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*How about something like Praesodymium? Aside from stoichiometric lasers and the odd eramic, I dont know of anything it’s good for. \*\* Misch metal, used in making cigarette lighters, contains about 5% praseodymium metal. The rare-earth oxides, including Pr2O3 are among the most refractory substances known. Along with other rare earths, it is widely used as a core material for carbon arcs used by the motion picture industry for studio lighting and projection. Salts of praseodymium are used to color glasses and enamels; when mixed with certain other materials, praseodymium produces an intense and unusually clean yellow color in glass. Didymium glass, of which praseodymium is a component, is a colorant for welders goggles. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/14 "2001-12-04T04:43:29Z")
Oxygen scares me. ---
**Author:** ![Cap\_n\_Crude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Cap\_n\_Crude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cap_n_Crude)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/15 "2001-12-04T04:49:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*Oxygen scares me. \*\* Are you referring to the element, or the Oprah Winfrey TV network? ---
**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/16 "2001-12-04T04:58:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > \*\*Is carbon used for anything? \*\* Apparently, some people have a bizzare sexual fetish for it. Google turns up thousands of hits for “carbon dating.” ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/17 "2001-12-04T05:08:58Z")
I vote for Mendeleevium. It tastes good, but you wake up with such a headache the next morning. -Loopus (I’m going to have to stop drinking from unmarked beakers in chem lab.) ---
**Author:** ![Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/18 "2001-12-04T05:28:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Truth Seeker \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > > \*\*Is carbon used for anything? \*\* > > Apparently, some people have a bizzare sexual fetish for it. Google turns up thousands of hits for “carbon dating.” \*\* It’s perfectly -natural- and -harmless-, man! Just because I like Carbon-play here and there doesn’t mean I’m bizarre… -Ashley [sub]I like carbon–DEAL WITH IT![/sub] ---
**Author:** ![barking\_frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@barking\_frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barking_frog)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/19 "2001-12-04T05:36:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > \*\*Is carbon used for anything? \*\* “Stupid carbon rod! It’s all just a popularity contest!” ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Scene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Bob\_Scene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Scene)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2001, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763/20 "2001-12-04T08:06:56Z")
My old job included the filthy, awkward task of scraping praseodymium-containing ash out of an expensive, unreliable and scientifically dubious device called a Weather-O-Meter. Yeah, useful stuff. As for tantalum, you better not tell Ed Anger it’s useless! It’s been used a lot for making medical implants, including plates that are implanted in people’s heads when they lose part of their skull, like Ed did in Korea. I never had much use for strontium, myself. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-useless-element/96763.md?page=2)