HOW NIELS BOHR CRACKED THE RARE-EARTH CODE

You can’t scroll a tech blog without bumping into a mention of rare earths—vital to EVs, renewables and defence hardware—yet almost nobody grasps their story. Seventeen little-known elements underwrite the tech that fuels modern life. For decades they mocked chemists, remaining a riddle, until a quantum pioneer named Niels Bohr rewrote th

You can’t scroll a tech blog without bumping into a mention of rare earths—vital to EVs, renewables and defence hardware—yet almost no one grasps their story. These 17 elements look ordinary, but they anchor the devices we hold daily. Their baffling chemistry kept scientists scratching their heads for decades—until Niels Bohr entered the