But chemistry nerds need Valentines too

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These Periodic Table of Sentiments cards by Pink Loves Brown are the atom bomb. Happy Birthday is represented by element Hb, etc. So clever!

But why isn't there a Valentine's Day card suitable for telling that special geek about your deep chemical attraction? What could say "love" better than element Vd??

Believe it or not, I had to write out Vd before I saw the obvious problem. What a catastrophic holiday FAIL that would be. . . I shudder at the thought.

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I don't think there's any single element that would work for Valentine's Day, but you could always try combinations: 53/71/23/92 could work, for example, or 22/95/8. (Of course, if you pick the wrong guy, he might just answer 53/95/31/39.)

By Phillip IV (not verified) on 13 Feb 2009 #permalink

At my old job when you were out for a vacation day they would write VD on the board under your name.

"Where's Tracey today?"
"Out for VD..."

Although pharmacologists must know some chemistry, the thing I think of is Vd, a pharmacokinetic term known as a drug's volume of distribution. It is a theoretical term that tells you something about how the drug is distributed in the body. It is essentially the mass of drug in the body divided by its plasma concentration at steady-state, with liters as the unit of measure. A drug that dissolves equally across all body water, ethanol for example, will have a Vd of 42 L (in an average 70 kg human). A drug that concentrates in fat or the liver (such as the antimalarial, chloroquine) will have a Vd much higher than total body water since its blood concentration would be very low.

And this is why I was lonely on Valentine's Day much of my life.

Happy Valentine's Day, friend!

This reminds me of a joke from college about eating a lead and jelly (Pb&J) sandwich.

while "Vd" is an ingenious way to say valentine's day, I think that expressing your love on valentine's day especially would be better suited writing out the chemical formula for hemoglobin. This is not only really biology/chemistry related, it's super nerdy... if you want to go more over the top though, you can get a picture of a heart (the real one, not the <3 kind) and then put the chemical formula for hemoglobin under it... unless the person you're giving it to isn't into internal organs... if they are, I would advise against this :)