Nexus - 0305 - New Times Magazine-pages

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I came back to Phoenix totally disillusioned with academia. I _instrument—a huge machine. It took up the whole garage area. It was not impressed with the Ph.D.s. I was not impressed with the was about 30 feet long and about eight or nine feet high. people I had paid money to. I found out that it is just a big system Anyway, when we ran this material, during the first 15 seconds where they work the graduate students to generate papers, but _— we got iron, silica, aluminum, little traces of calcium and sodium, they never say anything. But the government pays them forevery = maybe a little titanium now and then, and then it went quiet and paper they write, so they get their money based on the number of _ nothing read. So, at the end of 15 seconds, we were getting noth- papers they turn out. They all say the same thing: they just re- | ing. Twenty seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 35 seconds, 40 sec- word it and turn out another paper. It really is disillusioning when | onds—still nothing. Forty five seconds, 50 seconds, 55 seconds, you find out what academia is doing right now. 60 seconds, 65 seconds—but, if you looked in through the Fortunately I asked around the Phoenix area and I found out _ coloured glass, sitting there on the carbon electrode was this little about a man who was a spectroscopist. He had trained in West _ ball of white material. There was still something in there. Germany at the Institute for Spectroscopy. He had becn the At 70 seconds, exactly when the Soviet Academy of Sciences senior technician for Lab Test company in Los Angeles which _ said it would read, palladium began to read. And after the palladi- builds spectroscopic equipment. He's the man who blueprinted —_ um, platinum began to read. And after the platinum, rhodium the machines, designed them, constructed them, then took themto began to read. After rhodium, ruthenium began to read. After the field and made them work. I said, "Here's a good man. This _ ruthenium, then iridium began to read, and after the iridium, is not just a technician. Here is a man who knows how the —_ osmium began to read. machine works." Now, if you're like me, I didn't know what these elements were. I went to him with a Soviet book that the fire assay man had _I had heard of platinum, platinum jewellery, but what were these given me. It was called The Analytical Chemistry of the Platinum other elements? Well, there are six platinum group elements in Group Elements, by Ginzburg, et al. It was published by the __ the periodic table—not just platinum. They didn't find out about Soviet Academy of Sciences. In this book, according to the —_ them at the same time, so they have been added one at a time. Soviets, you had to do a 300-second burn They are all elements, just like iron, on these elements to read them. cobalt and nickel are three different Now, for those of you who have never | "What happened was that after the J elements. Ruthenium, rhodium and done spectroscopy, it involves taking a material dried, it ‘exploded. It palladium are light platinums, and carbon electrode that is cupped at the top. ; ae : osmium, iridium and platinum are the You put the powder on that electrode, exploded like no explosion I had heavy platinums. you bring the other electrode down above ever seen:in my life, and I've Well, we came to find out that rhodi- it and you strike an arc. In about 15 sec- vith * @ um was selling for about US$3,000 per onds, the carbon at this high temperature worked with , lot of explosive ounce. Gold sells for about US$400 bums away; the electrode's gone and your materials... It was as if somebody an ounce. Iridium sells for about sample's gone. So all the laboratories in | had detonated about 50,000 flash [J Uss800 an ounce, and ruthenium sells this country are doing 15-second burns ; one time j Fi fH for US$150 an ounce. Then you say, and giving you the results. According to bulbs all at ks an 2 Mat poof! "Gee, these are important materials, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the boil- aren't they?" They are important mate- ing temperature of water is to the boiling tials because the best-known deposit in temperature of iron, just like the boiling temperature of iron is to _ the world is now being mined in South Africa. In this deposit you the boiling temperature of these elements. have to go a half-mile into the ground and mine an 18-inch seam As you know from driving a car, as long as there is water inthe of this stuff. When you bring it out, it contains one-third of one motor of your car, the temperature of that car engine will never be —_ ounce per ton of all the precious elements. hotter than the boiling temperature of water until all the water is Our analysis, which we ran for two-and-a-half years, we gone. If you just heated the water on the stove ina pan, youknow _— checked over and over. We checked every spectral line, we that pan never gets hotter than the boiling temperature of the — checked every potential on interference, we checked every aspect water 'til all the water is gone. Once all the water is gone, the of this. We created apples and apples, oranges and oranges, temperature skyrockets really fast. bananas and bananas. We wanted exact matches. As long as there is iron there, the temperature of the sample can When we were finished, the man was able to do quantitative never get hotter than the boiling temperature of the iron until all analysis, and he said, "Dave, you have 6 to 8 ounces per ton of of the iron is gone, so you can then heat this stuff. Now, itis hard _ palladium, 12 to 13 ounces per ton of platinum, 150 ounces per to fathom how something with as high a boiling temperature as _ton of osmium, 250 ounces per ton of ruthenium, 600 ounces per iron could be just like water to these elements, but it is. So, liter- ton of iridium, and 800 ounces per ton of rhodium—or a total of ally, we had to design and build an excitation chamber where — about 2,400 ounces per ton, when the best-known deposit in the argon gas could be put around this electrode so that no oxygenor —_ world is one-third of one ounce per ton. air could get into the carbon electrode, and we could bum it not As you can see, this work wasn't an indicator that these ele- for 15 seconds but for 300 seconds. According to the Soviet —_ ments were there; these elements were there, and they were there Academy of Sciences, this is the length of time we had to bum the — in beaucoup amounts. They were saying, “Hey, stupid man, pay sample. attention; we are trying to show you something.” If they had been We set up, we got the pK blenders, we got the standards, we __ there in little amounts, I probably would have been content with modified the machine, we did all the analysis for results, we did this. But they were there in such huge amounts that I said, "Golly, all the spectral lines on this three-and-a-half-metre instrument. how can they be there in these quantities and no one knew it?" That's the spec for how big the prism is which opened up the line Now, you keep in mind, it wasn't one spectral analysis; it was spectrum. For those of you who don't know, most universities | two-and-a-half years of spectral analysis, running this material have a 1.5-metre instrument. This was a three-and-a-half-metre every day. And the man actually sent me away when they read NEXUS ¢ 31 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1996