“I’m James Chalmers. My title today is ‘An Anomalous Mineral from the Arizona Blasted Heath.’ I know it’s traditional to start with conclusions, and then give the data supporting it, but I’d rather have my data considered before I give my explanation, so that you listen to the data. To start at the beginning…
“…which leads me to my conclusion.” He paused, half for emphasis, half to overcome stage fright. “I announce the discover of three new non-Mendeleyev elements, tentatively X, Y, and Z. If my results are confirmed, I will name them Prescotium, Arizonium, and Berkelium. They are non-Mendeleyev because the atomic masses of their single isotopes are not close to being integers, and because they have non-integer charges. For example, X is charge +1/3, and atomic weight 17.5, so its chloride salt boiling point elevation is understood as a solution of X3Cl.”
At this point he was interrupted by the audience, calls of ‘ridiculous’ from his fellow students and faculty talking over each other from the rear of the room. The Department Head finally brought the room to order, and the serious questioning began.
“17.5? Did you try the mass spectrometer?” The speaker was Marjorie Woodruff, who Chalmers remembered as reputedly being the sharpest graduate student in the department. What she would do with a Chemistry doctorate was not quite clear to him, but that was her problem.
“Yes,” he answered, “It measured charge-to-mass ratio, so with a charge of +1/3 it appears to have a mass of 52.5.”
“However,” Professor Smith interjected, “in the spectrometer X can ionize, giving you an atom with a charge of +4/3, and thus an apparent mass of 13.1, exactly as found. We actually both saw that line when you visited, but 52.5 agreed with your colligative measurements, so we took 13.1 to be an impurity.”
