# Technology on a planet with only the 25 essential elements for life **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657 "2015-12-17T02:43:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/21 "2015-12-17T17:28:44Z")
Most modern electronics would likely be quite a challenge. No lead would make it difficult to develop traditional tin/lead solder, and no silver would make RoHS solder difficult. No lithium, nickel, or lead means different (or no) battery tech. **bibliophage** already mentioned the semiconductor problem. That branch of tech either wouldn’t happen or would go in a very different direction. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/22 "2015-12-17T19:09:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Can a particle accelerator create heavier elements from lighter ones? Of course, but it can’t make them in large quantities. Above I said that only nickel and titanium were in the plant list and not the mammal list. I was wrong on that. It seems **zinc** is also not in the mammal list. Don’t know why not. Zinc is an essential trace element for humans. It really should be in that list. I suspect there may be others left out as well. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/23 "2015-12-17T19:21:32Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Above I said that only nickel and titanium were in the plant list and not the mammal list. I was wrong on that. It seems **zinc** is also not in the mammal list. Don’t know why not. Zinc is an essential trace element for humans. It really should be in that list. I suspect there may be others left out as well. (Missed the edit window) Just counted the elements in that list and there’s only 24. Perhaps zinc was meant to be the 25th. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/24 "2015-12-17T19:25:34Z")
No Aluminium means no clay minerals, means no clay. Good luck getting out of the stone age/sustaining agriculture without pottery, then. That’s if life even evolves without[clay catalyst surfaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montmorillonite#Lipid_organization) in the first place, as one theory goes… ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/25 "2015-12-17T20:09:22Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Just counted the elements in that list and there’s only 24. Perhaps zinc was meant to be the 25th. Yeah, when I look at that chart, the text in the gray rectangle at bottom right seems to have formatting issues. Zinc was probably supposed to be there. The biological importance of zinc is mentioned at the bottom of the accompanying article. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/26 "2015-12-17T20:37:05Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No Aluminium means no clay minerals, means no clay. Good luck getting out of the stone age/sustaining agriculture without pottery, then. That’s if life even evolves without[clay catalyst surfaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montmorillonite#Lipid_organization) in the first place, as one theory goes… I should add - never mind pottery, good luck getting agriculture started with the poor soils you’ll have worldwide with _no_ clays in the mix. And all the different rock types you won’t have if you can’t have feldspars, micas, most garnets, some pyroxenes and amphiboles and all the metamorphics that derive from them as well, neither. And goodbye all the shales, mudstones, schists, slates etc… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/27 "2015-12-17T20:38:54Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Another side of this coin would be to describe plausible physical/chemical properties of an element (or its compound) that would be useful, but such an element does not exist. Somehow, we keep working around the absence of this hypothetical element, undismayed, and technology marches on. So, we in fact are living on a planet in which even 92+ are not enough to meet all applications, real or imagined, but technology seems open-ended nevertheless. Exactly. Because planet Earth does not have any of a dozen flavors of unobtanium, we’re completely blocked out of all sorts of technlogies–Zzzrk, Bevtrk, Quoplat, and let’s not forget simple Pppppromp, without which were were stuck in the iron age and it took us a thousand years to figure out a work around. Boy will we feel like chumps when we’re contacted by aliens from Noplakkkrzt who easily mastered FTL travel and antigravity which were impossible for us because our solar system completely lacks CccKccCcctroooooplap. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/28 "2015-12-17T21:07:21Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No Aluminium means no clay minerals, means no clay. Good luck getting out of the stone age/sustaining agriculture without pottery, then. That’s if life even evolves without[clay catalyst surfaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montmorillonite#Lipid_organization) in the first place, as one theory goes… Pottery is very important without a doubt, but there are alternatives that I think we’d get by with. Plant fibers like cotton and hemp and animal products like leather and bladders can all be used to make long-lived, water-proofed containers. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/29 "2015-12-17T22:45:50Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I should add - never mind pottery, good luck getting agriculture started with the poor soils you’ll have worldwide with _no_ clays in the mix. > > And all the different rock types you won’t have if you can’t have feldspars, micas, most garnets, some pyroxenes and amphiboles and all the metamorphics that derive from them as well, neither. And goodbye all the shales, mudstones, schists, slates etc… The absence of SiAlic minerals is a blow for the ceramic industry, admittedly, but SiMatic and SiFetic minerals are still there, so you can have quarry rock, aggregates (down to very fine sand and silt,) silica sand, refractories. You’ll have glass, definitely, as well as puzzolan cement. Looks like forest products are going to figure significantly from the very start, and technology to develop organic substances to substitute for the lack of certain metals will evolve very quickly. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/30 "2015-12-17T23:39:56Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Magnetite is an iron oxide, so that’s covered. The most common permanent magnet is alnico, which is not possible without the ‘al.’ Then there’s iron “ferrite” magnets. Natural magnets (magnetite) are rarely used because they’re too weak. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/31 "2015-12-18T03:02:16Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Boy will we feel like chumps when we’re contacted by aliens from Noplakkkrzt who easily mastered FTL travel and antigravity which were impossible for us because our solar system completely lacks CccKccCcctroooooplap. Not the same thing at all. Our understanding of the periodic table makes us as certain as science can ever be that there are no additional stable elements to be found. Intelligent beings on the planet with only 25 elements would eventually realise there are gaps, they could deduct that there should be an element with atomic number of 13 and predict its properties and be very puzzled why they couldn’t find any. They’d also eventually become aware of noble gases by studying spectra from their sun and other stars. Unless their civilisation is on the surface of a neutron star\* or something they’re not going to have exotic forms of matter we don’t know about. - See: [Dragon's Egg - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/32 "2015-12-18T07:41:08Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > The absence of SiAlic minerals is a blow for the ceramic industry, admittedly, but SiMatic and SiFetic minerals are still there, so you can have quarry rock, aggregates (down to very fine sand and silt,) silica sand, refractories. You’ll have glass, definitely, as well as puzzolan cement. > > Looks like forest products are going to figure significantly from the very start, and technology to develop organic substances to substitute for the lack of certain metals will evolve very quickly. _What_ forests - name me the forests that grow in sandy soils with no clay fraction, please. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/33 "2015-12-18T07:53:05Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _What_ forests - name me the forests that grow in sandy soils with no clay fraction, please. Sure you’d have to assume life would evolve completely differently, there wouldn’t be any forests as we know them but there might be “large fibrous structures sustained by a photosynthesis like process” which don’t need clays and can grow in sandy iron / silicon soils. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/34 "2015-12-18T08:33:09Z")
I’ve seen nonclayey soil. And yes, a forest can grow in such a soil. [http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/214.html](http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/214.html) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/35 "2015-12-18T08:44:10Z")
Sorry, posted too soon > [@the\_diego](#): > > The absence of SiAlic minerals is a blow for the ceramic industry, admittedly, but SiMatic and SiFetic minerals are still there, so you can have quarry rock, aggregates (down to very fine sand and silt,) silica sand, refractories. You realize the dominant mineral in most mafic rocks is still some form of feldpar, right? feldspar makes up 60% of our crust. And if you take that out, what you’re proposing instead is a wholly ultramafic world. Serpentine barrens are interesting places to visit, but you’re not going to develop an agriculture worth mentioning on them. > [@](#): > > You’ll have glass, definitely, as well as puzzolan cement. Most pozzolans contain aluminium hydrates. And ultramafic lavas don’t make the kind of ash you need for _pozzolana_, anyway - all that ash and pumice is felsic or mafic. Ultramafics like komatiite erupted with the viscosity close to water. > [@dracoi](#): > > Pottery is very important without a doubt, but there are alternatives that I think we’d get by with. Plant fibers like cotton and hemp and animal products like leather and bladders can all be used to make long-lived, water-proofed containers. Except you can’t really cook properly in them, and they’re all perishable organic materials, so long-term storage of produce is right out, plus they won’t hold the range of acids, alcohols etc that pottery can (since you’re using organic resins, waxes and pitches to waterproof them, i take it). So you’ll be stuck at the tech level of those people that didn’t have pottery. Which are hunter-gatherers and the proto-agriculturalists of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, basically. And even the latter used clay in bricks and as mortar for their houses and granaries. Hell, you’re never even going to smelt metals and glass _without_ clay for your kilns and foundries? Primitive kilns aren’t made from blocks of artificial refactories the way modern industrial ones are. Are you even going to get the idea to smelt metals like copper, or making glass, without the experience of firing pots first? I don’t think people realize how _ubiquitous_ clays and other Al minerals are in even our modern lives. [“Between one-half and two-thirds of the world’s population, in traditional societies as well as developed countries, still live or work in a building made with clay as an essential part of its load-bearing structure.”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay#As_a_building_material) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/36 "2015-12-18T09:00:16Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Sure you’d have to assume life would evolve completely differently, there wouldn’t be any forests as we know them but there might be “large fibrous structures sustained by a photosynthesis like process” which don’t need clays and can grow in sandy iron / silicon soils. I would not make that assumption. We went through entire geological eras without trees, with photosynthesizers being perfectly happy being non-fibrous until 400+ Ma. Good luck making your tools with _Prototaxites_ stems. > [@the\_diego](#): > > I’ve seen nonclayey soil. So have i > [@](#): > > And yes, a forest can grow in such a soil.[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/214.html](http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/214.html) Is that cite supposed to prove it? Cite, please, for a forest growing on a soil with 0% clay fraction. The sand forests I know of (in South Africa) still have a clay component in their soil ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/37 "2015-12-18T09:02:22Z")
Ok thats very interesting, so is it possible to get some other “clay like” material that could be made into pottery using other elements on our list or is Aluminium the only candidate for this? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/38 "2015-12-18T09:04:10Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Not the same thing at all. Our understanding of the periodic table makes us as certain as science can ever be that there are no additional stable elements to be found. That’s not [my understanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability)…OK, maybe not _found_. More like “made” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/39 "2015-12-18T09:06:52Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Ok thats very interesting, so is it possible to get some other “clay like” material that could be made into pottery using other elements on our list or is Aluminium the only candidate for this? All clay minerals are aluminosilicates. Most other modern ceramics that don’t use clay, use pure alumina (Al[sub]2[/sub]O[sub]3[/sub]). There are other ceramic materials, like the carbides, but you’re not going to discover those _ex nihilo_ the way you can pottery. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2015, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657/40 "2015-12-18T09:11:16Z")
If we ever manage to create them, elements in the island of stability are still expected to be extremely radioactive with a half life between one-day and one-year. We’re not going to be seeing any new elements that are stable even over a human lifetime. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-on-a-planet-with-only-the-25-essential-elements-for-life/740657.md?page=3)