Chapter 5
Heavy Metal » Truth in Sparks

ut through titanium-marketing hype-take a grinder to your stuff. In the early 1900s, the element radium was so popular, it became a marketing term.

Luminous watch hands used radioactive radium, but Radium-brand butter, fortunately, did not.

Today, titanium is the new radium. Everything from credit cards to crowbars is advertised as having the strength of titanium.

How many products actually do? As it happens, there is a simple test.