Page 66 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

ever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the
provider of the Submissions”.

How about that? The Disney arm extends throughout the
universe, say their lawyers. What will the Jovians have to say
when they find out about this? Think about it the next time

your kids switch to the Disney channel and start surfing.
Getting back to ruthenium again, let’s assume for argu-
ment’s sake that it’s actually true there are four ten-thousandth
parts per million of ruthenium in the universe. Is that a lot of
ruthenium or just a little bit? If the universe is infinite in size,
that’s a lot of ruthenium. Even if the universe isn’t infinite, just
knowing how big the universe is, that would still be quite a
bit of ruthenium. Maybe not so much relative to how much

“universe” there is, but nevertheless there would still be quite
a bit of ruthenium. Look at the wallop a single clove of gar-
lic packs into an entire dish. Personally, I think four ten-thou-
sandth parts per million is a lot. I’m sure there are nowhere
near four ten-thousandth parts per million of my wife, Ruth,
in the entire universe, but I can always tell when she’s around.

Ruthenium was discovered in Russia in 1844 by Karl Karlo-
vitch Klaus. As soon as he discovered it, he knew what he had
to name it, because Ruthenia is Latin for his beloved Russia.
Everyone was patriotic in those days, even scientists, so they
named important things like elements after important plac-
es. Today, when people discover things they name them after
themselves. I think Karl should have named his new element
Karlovium, which sounds pretty good, better than ruthenium,
don’t you think?

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