the.com/thulium
the rarest stable rare earth, lurking in lasers and portable X-ray machines nobody knows it powers
means A soft, silvery-gray rare-earth metal (element 69, symbol Tm) used in portable X-ray sources and certain lasers.
from Named by its Swedish discoverer Per Teodor Cleve in 1879 after Thule, the ancient name for a mysterious far-northern land at the edge of the known world — a fitting nod to Scandinavia, the home of so many rare-earth discoveries. The classical 'Thule' itself was the legendary northernmost place named by Greek and Roman geographers, so remote it became a byword for the ends of the earth.
- named after
- Thule, mythic land at the edge of the world
- X-ray duty
- powers field X-ray units when electricity vanishes
- price tag
- costliest of the naturally common rare earths
- laser heart
- its lasers slice tissue in eye surgery
- discovery
- isolated 1879 from an already-contaminated sample
thulium-169 — the only stable isotope of thulium, element 69 on the periodic table
thulium portable x-ray source — used in portable radiography devices at archaeological and industrial sites since the 1970s