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The following is an encore presentation of

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Everything Everywhere Daily. Located

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in the 90th place on the periodic table

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is the element Thorium. Thorium,

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as with every element, has unique properties,

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making it useful in certain applications. However,

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Thorium's best days still might be ahead of

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it, and it might move itself to the

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front of the list of the world's most

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important elements. Learn more about

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Thorium, how it was discovered, and its

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potential uses on this episode of Everything

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Everywhere Daily. Well,

0:45

we got a minute. I'm gonna buy that truck I've been wanting. Wait,

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don't you need, like, weeks to shop for a car? I

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don't. Carvana makes it super convenient to find exactly what

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I want. Hold up. You're buying a car

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on your phone? Isn't that more of a laptop thing?

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You can shop wherever you want. I

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like to do my research, read reviews,

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compare models. Plus, Carvana has thousands of

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options. How'd you decide on that truck?

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Because I like it. Oh, that is a great reason.

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Go to carvana.com to sell your car

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the convenient way. This

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episode is sponsored by ButcherBox. As

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we gear up for the Fourth of July, there's one thing on everybody's

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Again, that's butcherbox.com/daily and

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use code DAILY60. The

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story of thorium begins in 1815 at

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the Falun copper mine in Sweden. Falun

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at the time was the most productive copper mine

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in the world, and copper from the mine had

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been the single biggest export from Sweden over the

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previous several centuries. A

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previously unknown mineral had been discovered, and it

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was given to the chemist, John's Jacob Brazelius,

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to determine what it was. Brazelius

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had previously discovered the elements cerium

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and selenium. After

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analyzing the substance in 1817, he

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determined that he had once again discovered a new

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element. He called the new element

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thorium after the ancient Norse god of

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thunder, Thor. However,

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Brazelius got it wrong. It wasn't

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a new element, it was actually

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yttrium orthophosphate. Fast forward

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to 1828. An amateur Norwegian mineralogist

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by the name of Morten Thron

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Essmark found an unusual mineral in

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Telemark, Norway. He sent it to

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his father, who was a professor of geology. He

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couldn't figure out what it was, so he sent

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it to Brazelius. Brazelius analyzed

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the substance and concluded that this was in

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fact a new element. And this time the

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new element was now going to be called

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thorium. And this time he

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got it right. It was a new element, and the

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mineral it was found in was dubbed thorite. For

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decades after its discovery, there was

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no practical use found for thorium.

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It wasn't until 1885 that it found

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its first and biggest use as a

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mantle for gas lamps. For

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those of you old enough, you might remember

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seeing mantles in gas camping lanterns. They

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looked like mesh bags that would shine brightly when

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heated with a gas flame. They

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were in fact mesh cloth bags which

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were impregnated