#phosphorous

I LOVE STEALING!

-fluorine (oh sh t sh s st l ng th v w ls n w)

Day 15: Phosphorous

Today I got a bit of headcanon info dump for Phosphy here lmao.

Phosphorous, despite having a extremely cool name that means "light-bearer" in Latin, was actually first separated in 1669 from human urine. Probably an embarrassing memory for him.

Phosphorous is also very flammable, white phosphorous can self-combust; red phosphorous is used to make matches, as it can ignite stuff through only friction.

he's so fuckin evil for no reason like bro stop

1640s, "substance or organism that shines of itself," from Latin phosphorus "light-bringing," also "the morning star" (a sense attested in English from 1620), from Greek Phosphoros "morning star," literally "torchbearer," from phōs "light," contraction of phaos "light, daylight" (related to phainein "to show, to bring to light," from PIE root *bha- (1) "to shine") + phoros "bearer," from pherein "to carry" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children").

As the name of a solid, non-metallic, combustible chemical element, it is recorded from 1680, originally one among several substances so called; the word used exclusively of the element from c. 1750. It was discovered in 1669 by Henning Brand, merchant and alchemist of Hamburg, who derived it from urine. Lavoisier demonstrated it was an element in 1777. According to Flood, "It is the first element whose discoverer is known."

Generating life out of an organic soup is a complicated business. You need a whole bunch of ingredients, all together in the same place, in the right conditions. While the precise conditions might be is still a matter of debate, we have a decent idea of which items on the periodic table are required. One critical ingredient – phosphorus – has just been found on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy; one of the last places scientists expected to see it. That's because the kinds of huge stars responsible for the creation of phosphorus aren't generally found out there. "To make phosphorus, you need some kind of violent event," says astronomer and chemist Lucy Ziurys of Arizona State University and Steward Observatory. "It is thought that phosphorus is created in supernova explosions, and for that, you need a star that has at least 20 times the mass of the Sun."

Skull with jaw affected by phosphorus poisoning.

J. Bartholomew

headshot icons with the elements 10-18 from this