One of my sources for electronic components is element 14 (au.element14.com). They changed their name from ‘Farnell‘ in 2010, but I have only just now realised it’s significance. It is named after silicon, the 14th element in the periodic table and the main ingredient of semiconductors (i.e. computer brains).
Silicon, like carbon, can make four bonds per atom, placing it in the zone where it can lose, share or gain electrons to satisfy its desire for complete orbital shells.
I tried to access their website just now by typing the URL element14.com.au but I reached a business site for Australian IT developers, who also make their living from silicon, but at a slightly higher level of abstraction. This made me wonder why ‘element’ and ’14’ should be such a popular combination.
If you compare the two URLs, you’ll see that the ‘Farnell’ element 14 uses ‘au’ as a subdomain of their main dot-com site, whereas the Aussie developers’ site lies within the ‘au’ top-level domain (TLD). A small rearrangement of letters leads to quite different results.
