Why Are Olympic Medals Gold, Silver, and Bronze

Check out these divers, trying super-hard to dive the best dive that has ever been dived:

These faces don't lie. Image via.

Incredible feats of strength, dedication, and squished faces are on prominent display at the London 2012 Olympics. I won't pretend to understand what drives Olympic athletes to be so zany, but I do know that if they squish their faces hard enough they will be rewarded with one of these beautiful Olympic medals.

2012 Olympic Medals

There they are...silver, gold, and bronze...from left to right. But why are those medals made out of those metals????? AND, why is bronze good, silver better, and gold the best??

Why Fire is Cool - entry #2 - How Charcoal Changed the World

Entry #2 in my "why fire is cool" list starts with a brief introduction to charcoal and ends with humanity being changed forever.  It was around the time that I was waiting for the kebabs in the picture below to come off the grill that I learned what charcoal is, and that excited just about as many neurons in my brain as did eating the savory kebabs.

The Rise and Fall of William "Aluminum" Frishmuth

A man named William Frishmuth, a close acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, was once the only person in the united states capable of producing the metal aluminum.  Perhaps the height of his metallic prestige came when Frishmuth was commissioned in 1884 to forge an aluminum pyramid to be placed on top of the Washington monument.  At the time, it was the largest chunk of pure aluminum ever cast.  Here is what it looks like:

But why aluminum?  Why would the US government honor its first leader by making this pyramid out of the metal in which I wrap my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?  The answer