How it works
Ten questions can't tell 118 elements apart on their own. The trick is to put you and every element in the same space.
Six dimensions, taken from chemistry
Each element gets a score from 0 to 10 on six traits. The scores come from real properties first, then get a hand-edit for the well-known elements so the reading feels right.
- Reactivity
- calm, cautious ↔ bold, impulsive. In chemistry: reactivity: noble gases at one end, alkali metals and halogens at the other.
- Sociability
- works alone ↔ bonds with everyone. In chemistry: how many bonds an element typically forms, from helium to carbon.
- Stability
- changeable ↔ steady, reliable. In chemistry: stable isotopes versus radioactive ones.
- Energy
- slow, heavy ↔ quick, light. In chemistry: atomic mass, inverted: hydrogen is quick, uranium is not.
- Rarity
- mainstream ↔ one of a kind. In chemistry: abundance in the Earth’s crust, inverted: oxygen is common, francium is not.
- Warmth
- cool, distant ↔ warm, bright. In chemistry: colour, lustre and melting point: gold and copper are warm, chlorine is not.
Your answers land in the same space
Every answer adds or removes points on one to three of those dimensions. At the end your totals are compared with the average quiz-taker on each dimension, so the result is about where you stand out, not about how many points you collected.
Then the quiz measures the angle between your profile and each of the 118 element profiles (cosine similarity, for the curious) and picks the closest. The two runners-up are shown too, because "why am I this one" is half the fun.
Thirty well-known elements get a small bonus (5%) in close races. Without it almost everyone would get an obscure synthetic element, and "I'm Roentgenium" is a worse conversation than "I'm Sodium".
The rarity number is real
"Only 0.4% of people are Osmium" is counted from actual quiz completions and refreshed daily. Until enough people have taken the quiz the page says so and shows an estimate from a simulation of every possible answer combination.
The ten rarest results get a gold frame on their card. Because that's a ranking rather than a fixed threshold, gold stays rare however the numbers shift.
About the characters
Each element lists three characters from literature that share its traits. They all come from public-domain works, they're cited with book, author and year, and every trio mixes women and men. They're company, not a verdict: being Sodium doesn't make you Tom Sawyer.
What we keep
Nothing on a server of our own. Your result lives in your browser; the link you share names only the element. Details are on the privacy page.