balthorium

A fictional element in Dr. Strangelove, Balthorium is the key component in the Russians' doomsday device. The device consists of a number of hydrogen bombs with the radioactive isotope Balthorium G wrapped around them. When detonated, they will produce "a doomsday shroud" that will cover the earth and kill everything on it. A problem arises from the movie as to what the actual name of the element is. When pronounced by the Russian ambassador, it sounds like 'debalthorium', and Dr. Strangelove himself actually gets it wrong and calls it 'cobalt-thorium' (see Cobalt bomb). This is wrong because compounds do not have half-lives, only their component elements do. Strictly speaking, drugs may have a "half-life" before being eliminated from the body (that for caffeine is about 6 hours) however this has nothing to do with the half-lives of their elements.

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