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The little-known rare earth element nauseum (atomic weight 172) has the interesting property of being completely insoluble in everything but 12-year-old bourbon.
This curious fact was discovered in the laboratory of Professor Ludwig von Schlimazel, the eminent German chemist whose invention of the bathtub ring won him the Nobel Prize. Having unsuccessfully tried to dissolve nauseum in 7642 different solvents over a 10-year period, Schlimazel finally came to the 30 mL of Old Aardvark Bottled-in-Bond that was the only remaining liquid in his laboratory.
Always willing to suffer personal loss in the name of science, Schlimazel calculated the amount of nauseum needed to make up a 0.03 molar solution, put the Aardvark bottle on the desk of his faithful technician Edgar P. Settera, weighed out the calculated amount of nauseum and put it next to the bottle, and then wrote the message that has become part of history:
“Ed Settera. Add nauseum!”
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