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this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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I would have loved this in school.
I LOVE the “you are here”
Everything that isn't green should be 'definitely not' and several green ones are questionable
The particular form the element is in also matters a lot.
Take helium, for example. Is it really possible to 'lick' a gas? I'd say it's not. You could lick liquid helium, though ... and you really shouldn't, unless you enjoy severe frostbite on your tongue.
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You can totally lick Sodium! Its natures poprocks!
In theory, if you dry enough your tongue, you can lick sodium, i wouldn't keep it on my tongue longer tha 0.5s tho
well, i wouldn't keep it on my tongue at all tbf
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It's 100% accurate. But just in case, could you have the map on you when you go around licking things? The resultant news article will be way funnier that way.
Sure! I'll keep that in mind for my next lickpacking tour across Europe.
Because everything exists in Europe :-D
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Na: bad. Cl: bad. NaCl: amazing!
Some of the purple ones have a time limit to lick them before you die that starts once you enter the room they are kept. You'll still die after licking them, but you would at least have licked it if you're quick.
So those are "yes, but hurry"?
jots down in notebook
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Pshh. You can lick any of them once.
You really shouldn't, though.
I can be, though, if you ask nicely..
Oganesson has a half-life of about 0.7 ms and is excruciatingly difficult to synthesize in a way that even lasts on the order of milliseconds. The beam it's created in is sent to a semiconductor detector. You'd be stretching the definition of "lick" very heavily if you could even convolute a way to make it land on the human tongue.
Easy, just send the beam to their tongue instead of the duperwhatsit detector. Bam. Licked.
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If you can get your tongue inside the machinery they use at Lawrence Livermore to create a split-second instance of some rare Earth actinide, you deserve to lick it.
It’s really funny, yesterday I saw a dude walk around with a T-shirt with exactly this periodic table and thought it was hilarious and now I find this
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Licking calcium is fine?
I guess if you're okay with the nasty burn...
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Can you lick a gas? I would think it would need to be at least liquid, and once some of these are in a lickable state you probably wouldn't want to go ahead and do it.
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If lead is "maybe not a good idea", the rest of these must be really bad ideas. I like that there's still 2 more levels above lead. I assume the second level just explodes or vaporises you instantly or something.
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The periodic table is surprisingly lickable.
Coming from someone identifying as salt, that's high praise! 😁
Can you lick a gas? Or do you have to cool it down until liquid?
I wouldn't advise licking calciums:
The chemistry of calcium is that of a typical heavy alkaline earth metal. For example, calcium spontaneously reacts with water more quickly than magnesium but less quickly than strontium to produce calcium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. It also reacts with the oxygen and nitrogen in air to form a mixture of calcium oxide and calcium nitride.[14] When finely divided, it spontaneously burns in air to produce the nitride. Bulk calcium is less reactive: it quickly forms a hydration coating in moist air, but below 30% relative humidity it may be stored indefinitely at room temperature.[15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium
Because of vigorous reaction of quicklime with water, quicklime causes severe irritation when inhaled or placed in contact with moist skin or eyes.
So.. I should lick it fast and then hide from the effects under a table?
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Okay if you think licking lead and uranium is maybe not a good idea then I think you need to reevaluate your decision making skills.
I wouldn’t lick lead as a hobby, but a quick one wouldn’t be the end of things.
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Licking calcium is a bad idea (it reacts with water). Licking phosphorus is really dependent on its form. Red phosphorus is okay, white phosphorus is a painful death.
why is it fine to lick calcium? wouldn't that cause sever burns?
It would, don't do it. There's more than one questionable assignment on the table including magnesium right below it.
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I'm wearing that picture on a shirt right now!
I posted this a long time ago. Got sent Cody's Labs list, and it was very different. He has licked so many...
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Technetium really should be purple. The isotope that you'd be most likely to get some of (used for nuclear medicine) has a half-life of about 6 hours, and is appropriately radioactive.
If you find enough oganesson to lick, you should get to do it
How many licks to get to the center of a sodium lollipop
If you have enough saliva, just one...
The good version of this says "see you on the other side".
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