Beryllium Atomic number 4 Gems Stuff with flaws Commentary

Paris, Berlin—Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, Friedrich Wöhler, Antoine Bussy elements

Beryllium

• Beryls and emeralds
• people thought
• are suspiciously similar.
• Chemists confirmed
• they have the same structure
• but couldn’t explain
• why they shine with different colors.
• Louis Nicolas Vauquelin
• had found chromium in rubies
• so people asked him
• about beryls and emeralds.
• Vauquelin found, aside from
• a little chromium in emerald,
• both beryl and emerald
• contained a new element
• whose oxide he named glucina.
• Thirty years later,
• Friedrich Wöhler and Antoine Bussy
• independently isolated the metal
• by reacting potassium
• and beryllium chloride.

Atomic number 4

• Paul Lebeau produced
• the first pure beryllium
• using electrolysis in 1898
• but commercial production
• wasn’t successful until 1932.
• *
• Beryllium rocket nozzles.
• Beryllium mirrors
• for space telescopes.
• Beryllium in high-frequency
• speaker drivers.
• Beryllium phosphors
• in early fluorescent lights.
• Beryllium windows
• transparent to X-rays.
• Beryllium-copper alloys
• six times harder than copper.
• *
• Beryllium is highly toxic.
• Many uses of beryllium are discontinued.
• Avoiding contact or breathing beryllium dust
• is highly recommended.

Gems

• Aluminum cyclosilicate crystals
• with certain trace elements.
• Aquamarine and maxixe, green-blue,
• and aquamarine chrysolite, pale yellow,
• from different iron ions.
• Emerald, green,
• from chromium or vanadium.
• Heliodor, greenish-yellow,
• and golden beryl, golden yellow,
• from iron ions.
• Morganite, light pink to rose,
• and red beryl or bixbite, red,
• from manganese ions.
• Goshenite, clear.

Stuff with flaws

• Synthetic emeralds
• have no flaws.
• Some might feel
• small inclusions
• don’t reduce
• a natural emerald’s value
• but show its age
• and natural origin.
• If only the same were true
• of spots and wrinkles.