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The Most Expensive Element Isn’t Gold (It’s Not Even Close)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/wLxhYfyFw0g/0.jpg Meet every chemical element, from hydrogen to oganesson: who discovered it and when, what it really looks like, how its atoms are built, roughly what it costs, and where you meet it in daily life.
No chemistry background needed. We also tell the story of the table itself: from Lavoisier and Mendeleev to Moseley, Seaborg, and the search for elements 119 and 120. Prices are rounded ballparks from recent markets and change over time.
⏱ Chapters 0:00:00 The question 0:00:31 What is an element? 0:01:15 How to read the table 0:01:48 Before chemistry 0:03:30 Mendeleev's big idea 0:04:14 Moseley and the atomic number 0:05:25 Where elements come from 0:06:22 Row 1: Hydrogen, Helium 0:07:59 Row 2: Lithium to Neon 0:09:52 Carbon 0:11:10 Oxygen 0:13:20 Row 3: Sodium to Argon 0:15:17 Silicon 0:18:49 Row 4: Potassium to Krypton 0:23:20 Iron 0:25:10 Copper 0:30:05 Row 5: Rubidium to Xenon 0:36:22 Silver 0:41:18 Row 6: Cesium to Radon 0:44:33 Neodymium 0:55:41 Gold 1:00:43 Row 7: Francium to Oganesson 1:04:05 Uranium 1:11:15 Superheavy elements 1:19:28 Beyond 118 1:20:02 The whole table 1:20:34 Final thoughts
📚 Key ideas
• The number of protons defines the element: 1 for hydrogen, 6 for carbon, 79 for gold
• Mendeleev left gaps and predicted gallium, scandium, and germanium
• Moseley's 1913 X-ray work turned atomic number into the table's real rule
• 94 of the 118 elements occur in nature; 24 were made by people
• Prices run from pennies per kilogram to tens of millions of dollars per gram
📖 Sources
• Scerri, E. (2019). The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
• Emsley, J. (2011). Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford University Press.
• Greenwood, N. N. & Earnshaw, A. (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann.
• Haynes, W. M. (ed.) (2016). CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (97th ed.). CRC Press.
• Meija, J. et al. (2016). Atomic weights of the elements 2013 (IUPAC Technical Report). Pure and Applied Chemistry, 88(3), 265-291.
• Moseley, H. G. J. (1913). The high-frequency spectra of the elements. Philosophical Magazine, 26, 1024-1034.
• Mendeleev, D. (1869). On the relationship of the properties of the elements to their atomic weights. Zhurnal Russkogo Khimicheskogo Obshchestva, 1, 60-77.
• IUPAC (2016). Discovery and assignment of elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118. Pure and Applied Chemistry, 88(1-2), 139-153.
• Hofmann, S. (2002). On Beyond Uranium: Journey to the End of the Periodic Table. Taylor & Francis.
• Abbott, B. P. et al. (2017). Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 848, L12.
• U.S. Geological Survey (2025). Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025. USGS. #periodictable #chemistry #science
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