Because I know you were all breathlessly awaiting the verdict on the great "aluminum"/"aluminium" controversy, I went to find more information. At https://books.google.com/books?id=YjMwAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA201 you can find a page in _Elements of Chemical Philosophy_ by Humphrey Davy (who first isolated aluminum), published in 1812; here he talks about "aluminum" (a metal to be found in alumina, which in turn was processed from alum). Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium) says this about the name:
"British chemist Humphry Davy, who performed a number of experiments aimed to isolate the metal, is credited as the person who named the element. In 1808, he suggested the metal be named alumium in an article on his electrochemical research which was published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This suggestion was criticized by contemporary chemists from France, Germany, and Sweden, who insisted the metal should be named for the oxide, alumina, from which it would be isolated. In 1812, Davy published a chemistry textbook in which he settled on the name aluminum, thus producing the modern name. However, its spelling and pronunciation varies: aluminum is in use in the United States and Canada while aluminium is in use elsewhere." That sounds plausible to me. --- Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 /* It's ok to doubt your beliefs; but it's not ok to believe your doubts. -Jim Snider, pastor, 2000-12-10 */ -----Original Message----- From: Bob Bridges [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 17:34 Aha! Yet a third story; in this one Davy started out with "aluminum" and the Europeans ~added~ the 'i'. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joe Monk Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 07:22 The British Scientist (Davy) who discovered ALUMINUM named it that. It is we Americans who are using the correct name ... the British press felt that it should be in line with sodium and potassium and thus added to the spelling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
