Metals aren’t typically something we think of as chewable (unless you happen to be the Iron Giant), but there appears to be an exception – indium. Try to gnaw on some steel and you could land yourself a visit to the dentist, but indium? That can be chomped on like a slightly stale stick of gum.
What is indium?
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Indium is a relatively rare, metallic element that was discovered back in 1863 by German chemists Ferdinand Reich and Hieronymous Richter, though they’d later have a spat about which one of them really discovered it.
Before their falling out, however, they named the new element after the Latin word for violet or indigo, indicum, since its spectrum produced a brilliant indigo line. To look at with the naked eye though, indium is actually silvery-white and shiny.
As you might have guessed from what we mentioned above about being able to chew it, indium is also super soft; it can be cut through with a knife or scratched with a fingernail.
Indium can “cry”, too – yes, really. If you bend a bit of indium, it makes a high-pitched, almost crunching-like noise. This is the sound of changes in its crystal lattice as the metal is being manipulated.
Should you chew indium?
There are other metals that are likely chewable, but you really wouldn’t want to stick in your mouth. You could probably bend a thin strip of lead with your teeth, or attempt to chew it with some difficulty, but… uh, you definitely shouldn’t do that considering that lead is very, very toxic.
Indium, on the other hand, is currently considered to be low in toxicity, although it’s worth pointing out that the Los Alamos National Laboratory suggests that “care should be taken” until we know more about the metal. Indium lung disease, first described in 2003, is known to affect workers exposed to indium tin oxide.
Still, that hasn’t stopped people from sinking their teeth into some, including the host of popular YouTube channel Vsauce, Michael Stevens.
“Biting into it wasn’t as hard as I expected,” said Stevens in a video where he took a bite out of a lump of indium. “It was kind of like refrigerated Milk Duds.” It didn’t taste quite as good as the delicious chocolatey candy though apparently – in fact Stevens said that it tasted like “nothing”.
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Having a chomp on indium, then, doesn’t really seem all that appealing compared to regular gum, if you forget the novelty of it for a moment. If the lack of flavor doesn’t put you off, keeping your pearly whites unscathed might. Indium might be softer than other metals, “but it’s probably not the best thing for your teeth,” Stevens noted, “so don’t do this at home.”
Source Link: Indium: The Rare, Shiny Element That Can Be Chewed Like Gum
