Bismuth Atomic number 83 Too soon Work in progress Commentary

Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, France elements

Bismuth

• Some confusion
• remains regarding
• the confusion
• of bismuth
• with lead, tin,
• antimony, and zinc
• in ancient times.
• We believe
• the Egyptians
• used it as
• a cosmetic.
• Bismuth is one
• of the sixteen
• elements known
• to alchemists
• and we don’t
• know what they
• thought of it.
• It’s hard
• to find mention
• of it elsewhere
• and of course
• they didn’t
• call it bismuth.
• Early Europeans
• mined it for use
• in pigments.
• Bismuth vanadate
• is a bright
• yellow pigment.
• Today bismuth
• oxychloride is in
• pearlescent
• cosmetics, and
• bismuth subsalicylate
• in Pepto-Bismol^®
• and Kaopectate^®.

Atomic number 83

• Bismuth was known by alchemists and metallurgists
• before the first millennium.
• Paracelsus described bismuth and zinc
• and gave zinc its name in 1526.
• Georgius Agricola described bismuth
• in De Natura Fossilium in 1548.
• Johann Heinrich Pott, Carl Wilhelm Scheele,
• and Torbern Olof Bergman worked on the problem.
• Claude François Geoffroy, in 1753,
• was the first to prove it was a separate element.

Too soon

• At the bismuth mines
• near the town of Schneeberg
• in Erzgebirgskreis (the mountainous
• ore district in Saxony),
• miners around 1477
• were familiar with ores
• for silver and three kinds
• of lead—ordinary lead,
• “white lead,” that is, tin,
• and tectum argenti,
• or “silver being made,”
• that is, bismuth.
• The alchemists taught
• the transmutation of elements,
• that all metals tended
• toward gold, the ideal, so that
• these three metals were
• tending toward silver
• in that order—lead,
• tin, bismuth, then silver.
• Consequently, when
• finding a vein of bismuth,
• the miners would sadly
• shake their heads and say,
• “Alas, we have come too soon.”

Work in progress

• It’s ancient, but still
• a work in progress.
• Many are patient;
• others impatient patients.
• One can only try.
• Past behavior
• is not indicative
• of future performance
• but no one’s waiting
• for the end.
• I’m evolving
• as fast as I can.
• In the meantime,
• in between time,
• I could use
• a bit of luck.