Few anniversaries are currently based on elements.
From
a cursory glance, they would appear to include only
silver,
gold, carbon (diamond), iron, tin, copper, aluminium,
platinum and nickel. It would also be possible to stretch
the list a little by considering elements in compounds,
alloys
or mixtures, so salt could become sodium. There
are
also several incompatible lists.
The entire periodic table should be used instead. If
we're
talking about wedding anniversaries, that's one heck of a
long list even if we only get to uranium, and it would be
sensible to stop fairly soon after that due to the highly
radioactive and unstable nature of the substances
concerned, unless one is to regard that as the end of the
marriage through death, which does make some kind of
sense if it's done in order of atomic number.
Consequently, "anniversaries" should occur more than
once
a year. It's also unfeasible to do them in order because
diamond has an atomic number of six whereas iron, the
sixth anniversary, is number twenty-six. Instead of doing
that, I suggest beginning with what's currently on a list
and
choosing, so far as possible, elements significant in the
appropriate substances.
Firstly, paper is hydrogen. Tritium EXIT-type sign with
"ENTRANCE" on it, since at that stage you will probably
still
be entranced, plus it's the entrance to a new
relationship.
Secondly, cotton is oxygen. Scuba-diving equipment or
possibly welding equipment.
Thirdly, leather is nitrogen (in the protein making up
leather). Flowers dipped in liquid nitrogen or maybe
some
high explosive should do it.
Fourthly, silk is sulphur.
Fifthly, there is an issue because every significant
element
in wood has already been used. I suggest phosphorus.
Matches.
Sixthly, iron - the first time something can be left alone.
Seventhly, copper.
Eighthly, salt is sodium.
Ninthly, we have copper again so that needs replacing. I
suggest aluminium because the tenth anniversary is
sometimes considered aluminium.
Tenthly, we have tin.
Eleventhly, chromium seems to be a fit substitute for
steel
since stainless steel is high in it.
Twelfthly, selenium can be used to replace silk as it's
been
used before and selenium is "eka-sulphur".
Thirteenthly, and this is a bit of a stretch, lace can be
replaced by chlorine, because there are two types of
agate
with lace in their names, one of which seems similar to
sodalite, which contains chlorine.
Fourteenthly, ivory can be fluorine because of the use of
fluorine on teeth.
Fifteenthly, crystal, which probably refers to a kind of
glass, can be silicon.
Sixteenthly, there is the start of a hiatus but the
suggestion
on Wikipedia is to give silver holloware as a gift. In
order
to find a novel element here, it probably makes sense to
use antimony because it's a significant metal in some
forms
of silver plate.
Seventeenthly, and this too is a stretch, furniture can
become manganese because wrought iron is sometimes
used to make furniture and that sometimes contains that
element.
Eighteenthly, I suggest replacing the white porcelain
suggested on the same list with titanium, since it's in
titanium dioxide, a startlingly white compound used to
provide whiteness.
Nineteenthly, thank you for reading this far and I suggest
arsenic, a component of some bronzes. This would
provide
the opportunity for a suicide pact or murder, which
would
be appropriate for some marriages.
Twentiethly, platinum is one suggestion so just leave it
at
that.
Twenty-firstly, nickel.
Twenty-secondly, well, copper's already been done but
zinc
is next to it and pretty common, so why not just use
that?
Twenty-thirdly, following that principle cadmium is the
next one along from silver, this one being silver plate.
Twenty-fourthly, the next one is silver so let's use the
one
before silver, which is palladium.
Twenty-fifthly, we have silver itself of course.
Twenty-sixthly, we have another gap, so I'm just going to
start work my way across the post-transition row, having
already used cadmium, and say indium.
Twenty-seventhly, tellurium, tin and antimony having
already been used.
Twenty-eighthly, iodine.
Twenty-ninthly, xenon. I quite like this idea because it's
expensive.
Thirtiethly, calcium, since it's traditionally pearl, which
is
calcium carbonate.
Thirty-firstly, there's another gap, so I shall now start
working across the first row of the transition metals and
say scandium.
Thirty-secondly, titanium has already been used so
vanadium is the next one.
Thirty-thirdly, cobalt is the next unused element.
Thirty-fourthly, rubidium is the one before strontium.
Thirty-fifthly, there is traditionally coral or jade. I
choose
to go for strontium because it burns with a coral flame.
Thirty-sixthly, here we are again with a bit of space so
I'm
going to say yttrium.
Thirty-seventhly, I finally get to use zirconium, which I
considered for crystal because of the use of cubic
zirconia
to replace diamond, but what the heck, I'll just stick it
here.
Thirty-eighthly, niobium seems about right here. Who,
after all, hasn't felt that the number thirty-eight has a
kind
of niobic quality from time to time?
Thirty-ninthly, molybdenum seems to be the obvious
choice.
Fortiethly, we would have ruby except that that is red
due
to chromium, so instead I am going to suggest mercury
because of its presence in the red mineral cinnabar. This
is really contrived of course.
For the forty-first to the forty-ninth, the nine elements
before gold, skipping platinum, seem appropriate, so
those
are thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, hafnium, tantalum,
tungsten, rhenium, osmium and iridium. I've been
neglecting the rare earths, so it's quite a relief to use
them
at last, if only three of them.
Following on from gold but skipping mercury, fifty-one
and
fifty-two can be thallium and lead. It's a bit peculiar
that
lead isn't already in there somewhere in fact.
Since the fifty-fifth is emerald, which contains
beryllium,
meaning it can be that, numbers fifty-three and fifty-
four
can be helium and lithium.
The fifty-sixth can be neon, because it's nearby and gets
me for once to coordinate the atomic numbers with the
next two, lanthanum the fifty-seventh and cerium the
fifty-eighth.
Approaching diamond, which is carbon, the fifty-ninth
can
be boron.
The sixtieth is carbon, which could save a lot of money
since it could just be a piece of graphite or coal instead
of
a real diamond.
After that it all seems to get a bit vague, so I don't know
about the rest. However, rather than just continuing to
fill
them in above sixty, I would prefer only to go up to
Americium at number ninety-five, leaving another thirty-
five to be peppered through the sixty-year period
regularly,
every year and a half or so. I am particularly keen on
uranium - uranium glass gifts seem quite groovy -
plutonium - give your partner a nuclear warhead for that
anniversary to use in arguments, or maybe a nuclear
power station - and
americium - smoke detector.