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by saxonww 880 days ago
This is the first time I've ever seen anyone write 'silicium' and sure enough, it's an alternative name for silicon.

I wonder if this is a more common name for silicon in some other part of the world (I'm in the US). I don't think I've ever seen this spelling before today, and I'm not a young person.
2 comments
the_third_wave 880 days ago
It is the spelling used in e.g. the Netherlands, a country where the light metal used in aircraft goes by the name Aluminium which also happens to be the correct version [1] of the bastardised Aluminum.

The word Silicon 'feels' wrong to a Dutch speaker because it makes it sound like integrated circuits are made out of the same stuff used to assemble aquariums, fake boobs and heat-resistant flexible cookware. That stuff is called 'siliconenrubber' or 'siliconen' (depending on the application and who you ask) in Dutch.

[1] a bit like vi vs emacs for chemistry in other words

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Dylan16807 878 days ago
The original name was alumium.

And it sounds like you're saying aluminium got corrupted into aluminum, which is not the case.

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kube-system 880 days ago
Silicone has silicon in it.
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adgjlsfhk1 880 days ago
honestly, I'd be in favor of renaming to computium. then you get to teach kids that sand is computium-dioxide!
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the_third_wave 879 days ago
That's it, now it finally becomes clear. Hear me.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not just a story, it is the story. The story of our planet, Earth, a planet-sized computer built by the Amaltheans to find the definitive question to life, the Universe and everything for which the answer is '42'. Things went awry when an ark full of telephone cleaners crashed on the planet/computer which made it come up with the wrong question. The book only mentions that they'd have to build a new Earth to run the program again but now it can finally be proven that they did no such thing - they just used the old one and recycled the top layer of the machine's substrate and left us the evidence: sand. Billions of tons of recycled computing equipment cover our beaches, filling up the bottom of the seas and covers parts of the planet.

Think about this the next time you're laying a brick wall, pour some concrete or are annoyed by the gritty stuff between your teeth when you eat your lunch on the beach. You're literally eating computing history and who knows what effects that will have on the final outcome.

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theanonymousone 879 days ago
Yes. We knew it as silicium in the school and it took me some time to realise that silicon is the same thing.

For a long time I assumed that Silicon is the "unofficial", American word for it, while silicium is the scientific name.

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