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Navigating the bismuth labyrinth
Answers for Globle, Metazooa, Chronogram and more from Oct 20 - Oct 26
Abe Train
October 27, 2025
Coming to your inbox every Monday with a brand new fun-fact and all the answers to Trainwreck Labs games from the past week.
This week, we have…
A fun fact inspired by Elemingle
Answers to last week's games
Reader survey
Navigating the bismuth labyrinth
Pepto-Bismal solves many problems, but for navigating an inter-dimensional bismuth labyrinth you might want something stronger.
Don’t be fooled if you come across a chunk of metal that looks like it belongs in a wizard’s treasure chest. It’s not a prop from a fantasy film, but a sample of bismuth (Elemingle element #274). Bismuth is famous for its stunning, iridescent crystals that display an array of colours, often including pink, blue, gold, and green all in one blocky, staircase-like formation. But what causes this rainbow effect?
Unlike most metals, bismuth is unusually dense and brittle, with a low melting point. When molten bismuth cools and solidifies, it forms crystals with unique, geometric “hopper” shapes. The striking colours, however, aren’t actually inside the metal, but rather they’re all about the surface. As the bismuth cools, a thin layer of oxide forms on its surface. This oxide layer is just the right thickness to cause light waves to interfere with one another, similar to how oil creates rainbow swirls on water. The result is a dazzling display of colours that shift depending on the angle you view it from.
Aside from its visual appeal, bismuth is also the heaviest non-toxic element and is often used as a safe substitute for lead in products like fishing sinkers and cosmetics. And if you’ve ever relied on pink medicine for a stomach ache, you’ve met bismuth before: bismuth subsalicylate is the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol!
Learn more: Geo Forward
Trivia
Bismuth-209 is the most stable radioactive element known. How long would it take for half of a sample to decay (its half-life)? |
Answers to last week's games
Monday, October 20 to Sunday, October 26.
Globle
| Globle: Capitals
|
Chronogram
| Fictogram
|
Metazooa
| Metaflora
|
Linxicon
The following are the shortest paths from last week:
#615 and → then → likely
#616 city → world → exist → existence
#617 rather → prefer → side → leg
#618 pregnancy → baby → sorted → index
#619 whenever → years → long → broad
#620 guess → either → too
#621 speak → argue → but → plus
#622 Play now!
Elemingle
#271 Moscovium
#272 Yttrium
#273 Strontium
#274 Bismuth
#275 Radium
#276 Lawrencium
#277 Actinium
#278 Play now!
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
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