Was This The WEIRDEST Discovery of an Element Ever?

Dive into the bizarre story of phosphorus, the element accidentally discovered by a 17th-century alchemist while searching for gold... in urine! From its eerie glow to its explosive uses, phosphorus has a fiery history that changed chemistry forever. Learn how this element illuminated science in more ways than one.

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#science #chemistry #history #alchemy #phosphorus

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ATTRIBUTIONS:

[michaelobrien]

Oh yes, the piss boiling man. I’m sure his neighbors loved him.

[ColtWadstein]

Phosphorus is a cool name I guess, but I'd have called it 'Urinium'.

[No-ucfg]

I'd say that THE weirdest and most ridiculous way of discovering an element was UC Berkeley asking the US military to detonate a goddamned Nuke on the pacific coast, have a jet fly through the shroom cloud then analyze the particles and dust found on the jet, which indeed helped them discover elements 99 and 100.

[DonnyHooterHoot]

Sounds like Monty Python logic. If piss is yellow and gold is yellow, they MUST be the same thing! Boil the piss!!

[quantumview]

The image of an entire factory that boils piss is nauseating

[seekvapes]

"What if we find a substance that could turn any metal into gold?"
"That would be awesome, imagine what it would do it we ate it?"
"I'm pretty sure that would grant us immortality!"
"That sounds like a reasonable prediction, can't argue with that."

[amosbackstrom]

"Somewhat that belonged to the body of man..."
I'm surprised Boyle didn't try bones, which would have yielded far more phosphorus. Probably illegal, but when has that stopped the greatest minds of a time?

[KnockKnockShows]

Next time I'm caught bottling my urine I'll play the 'It's for science' card.

[Ethyn_Jackson]

I'm ashamed to admit there's a mountain dew bottle in my room synthesizing some phosphorus.

[stickyfox]

My chemistry professor called phosphorus the only element derived from its chemical symbol.

[U.Inferno]

I can turn Iron into gold by throwing a shit ton of Iodine at it really really fast

[jmchez]

I don't know if it's true but I heard that, in the past, Chemistry professors would tell their students that if a 17th century alchemist could distill phosphorus, certainly a 19th /20th century student could do it too. As one would expect, gullible students would recount how they were in huge trouble with their parents or landlords because the stench would not go away.

The BBC did film a chemist recreating Brandt's experiment. He used about 4 liters of urine and got phosphorus but complained that the stench was almost unbearable.

[NonBinary_Star]

Imagine hangin out, out back, casually simmering a behemoth vat of 1500 GALLONS! of putrid urine🌞 ...birds fallin out trees ... squirrels throwin up acorns ...what a delight

[splotters]

Discovered in Dresden and used to destroy Dresden.

[bunsenn]

I love how arguably the weirdest discovery of an element was also the very first chemical element discovered in the modern era.

[Jo-JoandTaffy]

That guy really just didnt want to tell anyone that he liked playing with piss.

[EMC]

This is such a fascinating and hilarious story of the discovery of phosphorus. Keep doing the good work, my king.

[truthtoad]

Is this where the phrase "pissing away a fortune" came from?

[mvstermlnd]

this is how pyramids were made, with limestone cement, they knew how to use alchemy to basically "dissolve/crack into smaller pieces" and recreate rocks afterwards including granite.

[RichardStasiak-vt]

This is like the Monty Python insurance sketch where the guy collects gallons of urine just to prove he's serious about getting insurance.