In 1839, there was A captain in the Russian mining engineer corps Named Vassiliy Yevgrafovich Samarsky-Byhovets, But we’ll just call him Samarsky for short, He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t handsome, least not notably so, He was a little bit smarter than the average Joe, A nobleman by birth and in the military adept, And that’s all history remembers of his life…except… One day inside his mine, he found a curious thing, And sources shrug: was it actually him or perhaps an underling? Well either way, Samarsky’s said to have gotten his hands upon A jagged stone resembling caramel (if it was cooked for far too long), He had the bright idea to send his find across the border, See if German chemists could upon this rock impose some order, And eight years later (after a rather tantalising pause), They named the mineral samarskite...of course. The years went by, Samarsky died with that his lot, Never to know the secrets of samarskite soon unlocked By a Frenchman who discovered chemical elements all over the place And, faced with naming his latest find in samarskite, played it safe, And thus, via these Russian, German and then French diversions, Samarium was the first chemical element to be named after a person. Samarsky was just some guy, But he found a neat rock and now he’s immortalised In element number sixty-two On the periodic table known to me and you, Next to Einstein, Curie, Rutherford, All of scientific pedigree with excellence assured, But Samarsky hardly qualifies as a scientist... Yet samarium’s his element so add him to the list. In 1919, there was An organisation established for the standardisation of elements Called the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, But we’ll just call it IUPAC, ‘cause that’s a hell of an Element organisational name giving element moniker origins fame, Samarium’s byline but one in a long line of efforts t’wards standards maintained, ‘‘Tis they who do forestall Samarsky’s vanishing into thin air By enforcing SM in the sixty-second square. Samarium has since become essential to humankind, So here are but a few of all the uses one can find: Dating old things with its super long decay, Nuclear controls rods...anti-shark spray? Magnets, perhaps samarium’s main attraction And the one most likely to get from you the best reaction, ‘Cause there’s a decent chance samarium’s in the speakers sat atop Your head or ‘cross the room this moment feeding you this goddamn bop. Not bad for this guy no one knows, To be the guest producer on a million songs and shows, Samarsky’s come a long way from his mountainous mine And thanks again IUPAC for keeping his star ashine, For though he wrote no great symphonies and painted no grand murals, His name’s on every classroom wall this side of the Urals. Samarsky was just some guy, But he found a neat rock and now he’s immortalised In element number sixty-two On the periodic table known to me and you, Next to Seaborg, Bohr, Copernicus, He did little, but his name will outlive every one of us, For if IUPAC survives until the end of time... Then Samarsky will as well, but is that really such a crime? Researching nobodies from long ago is really rather draining, For of this guy there’s precious few descriptions remaining, The wiki page is no good, it’s a little brief and bare When everyone else on the periodic table’s listed with accolades to spare, I mean, I can’t even find an image of this guy online, Yes this Russian miner, he eludes even Google’s data mine, So let this be a lesson for you now, oh casual viewer: Be careful which historical event you try to skewer. ‘Cause maybe that’s it. Maybe you spend several days trawling through the Russian national archives in the hope of finding out anything else meaningful about this man - his demeanour, his hopes and dreams, any clue as to what he looked like - and every source just sends you back to the same three places: bland service records, an obituary that at least has the decency to mention he had a wife, and his one-line contribution to scientific history where he’s noted only for his ‘benevolence’. Maybe there’s more out there, but it’s probably locked in a vault in Russia or something. Benevolent. Samarsky was benevolent. Cool. So, what have we learnt? Well, if by the forces of serendipity, You send a curious stone to Germany, And if you’re high enough up in the hierarchy, And benevolent (to some degree), And if fifty years hence, a French chemist presents A new element sensed in the rock you dispensed, And IUPAC approves of the name he did choose, And one day it’s used in magnetic voodoo, Then maybe someday someone will write a pointless novelty song about you, And it would go like… Samarsky was just some guy, But he found a neat rock and now he’s immortalised In element number sixty-two On the periodic table known to me and you, Next to Lawrence, Mendeleev, Oganessian, All these others whose achievements they go on and on and on, But the first, the OG, he to whom they all must pay respects... Is Vassiliy Yevgrafovich Samarsky-Byhovets.