{"id":3726,"date":"2024-06-10T07:30:56","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T11:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3726"},"modified":"2024-06-10T07:32:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T11:32:37","slug":"rare-indeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/10\/rare-indeed\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare Indeed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>

What\u2019s the most common element in the universe?

That\u2019s easy. Not even close. Chemists estimate that 92% of all the atoms in the cosmos are hydrogen \u2013 the simplest element on the periodic table, comprised of one proton, one neutron, and one electron.

What\u2019s number two? Also a no-brainer. It\u2019s helium, the second element with regard to atomic number, representing 7% of the material universe.

That means that everything else \u2013 all the other elements we see in Mendeleev\u2019s celebrated periodic table \u2013 add up to just 1% of visible reality. As science reporter Sam Kean puts it in The Disappearing Spoon<\/em>, his exploration of the fascinating backstories of the elements, virtually everything we see around us on Earth represents just a \u201crounding error\u201d when it comes to the volume of stuff in the cosmos.

What\u2019s the most common naturally occurring element on Earth? 

That would be oxygen. Followed by silicon. Then comes aluminum, which few people suspected even 150 years ago.

As recently as the 1880s, aluminum was considered more precious than gold, silver, and platinum. That\u2019s because of its unavailability<\/em>. No one had figured out how to produce it in large quantities.

Visitors at the 1855 World\u2019s Fair stared at a display of aluminum bars as if they were looking at England\u2019s crown jewels.  Napoleon III of France hosted a banquet where the most honored guests were given aluminum utensils, while everyone else had to settle for eating their soup with spoons of gold.

When America\u2019s first president was honored with a 555-foot stone obelisk in the nation\u2019s capital, the builders decided to top the Washington Monument with a nine-inch capstone of pure aluminum.

That\u2019s right: America showered love on its most iconic chief executive with the same material that is currently chilling my next Diet Mountain Dew.

What changed?

Geologists discovered that aluminum is almost literally as ordinary as dirt, bound up with more than 270 other substances. Metallurgists ultimately learned how to transform an ordinary-looking rock called bauxite into all the aluminum the world would ever need. Aluminum\u2019s value on the global market immediately collapsed, with little prospect that it will ever rise again.

So, what\u2019s the rarest<\/em> element on our planet? 

That would be astatine, element #85, followed closely by francium, #87. Both are highly radioactive substances, which means they don\u2019t stick around very long.

Francium is so fragile that it\u2019s basically useless. Its most stable isotope lasts only 22 minutes before it transmutes into something else. Realistically, no one will ever be able to gather enough francium atoms even to create a visible sample. Kean points out that even if a scientist could make such a thing happen, a tiny blob of radioactive francium would \u201cmurder\u201d him in a matter of minutes.

But when it comes to rarity, there\u2019s nothing quite like astatine. 

Earth is comprised of six million billion billion kilos of matter. The total amount of astatine, as Kean puts it, is \u201cone stupid ounce.\u201d 

He then provides a memorable illustration. Suppose you owned a car. Let\u2019s call it a Buick Astatine. You know you left it parked somewhere in a garage, and you need to keep searching until you find it. But the first parking garage you come to is 100 million spaces wide, has 100 million rows, and is 100 million stories high. Oh, and there are 159 other such garages where your Astatine might be parked.  That\u2019s how hard it is to find a single atom of element #85 on our planet. Kean concludes that, all things considered, you\u2019d be better off walking home.

Why did God create such a strange world, with such wonky elements in such short supply?

That\u2019s a matter worthy of debate for philosophers and theologians.

Here\u2019s an easier question: Is there anything that the Bible calls \u201crare\u201d when it comes to God\u2019s relationship with humanity?

The answer is yes. In Romans chapter five, the apostle Paul marvels at the way God chooses to love such completely inept creatures as the ones you and I see in the mirror every morning. He writes:

\u201cYou see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely<\/strong> [there\u2019s that word] will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us\u201d (Romans 5:6-8).

Sacrificing one\u2019s own comfort, resources, and safety to bless another person \u2013 even to the point of death \u2013 is truly rare. But Jesus did it times eight billion, taking into account the latest estimate of global population, not to mention all those who have come before and all those who are still to arrive in this world.

Jesus didn\u2019t wait for us to get our individual acts together. He didn\u2019t wait for us to do a better job of balancing our ledgers between sin and virtue.

None of us, after all, could ever have pulled off such self-improvement.

Prompted by sheer, undeserved grace, he loved us. He died and rose again for us. And now he lives for<\/em> us, within<\/em> us, and through<\/em> us by means of his Spirit.

No other religion, creed, or ideology has ever promised such a thing, let alone imagined it. 

Of all the wonders in the universe, the matchless grace of Jesus the Messiah is rare indeed.   
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here What\u2019s the most common element in the universe? That\u2019s easy. Not even close. Chemists estimate that 92% of all the atoms in the cosmos are hydrogen \u2013 the simplest element on the periodic table, comprised of one proton, one neutron, and one electron. What\u2019s number two? Also a no-brainer. It\u2019s helium,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,748],"class_list":["post-3726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grace","tag-periodic-table"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3729,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726\/revisions\/3729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}