THAT'S where he left the clues for the new element?!

Howard may have wanted to tell Tony himself but died in a car accident..........
The clue was less about Tony discovering it and more about Howard not seeing the future.

"How about leaving a BIG hint in the films? "Hey Tony! Check out the structure of this building for a clue to creating a new element that wont kill ya!"


Why would he do that when it's apparant that the people at SHIELD had seen the video before Tony and who knows who else. Why would he leave such an open clue to risk it falling into the wrong hands.


Never argue with an idiot; people passing by might not be able to tell the difference.

I missed the scene where Howard knew in advance that Tony would put a miniature arc reactor in his chest to prevent shrapnel from killing him. Is that a deleted scene?

If it helps, you can assume that Fury knew that Howard was working on solving the cube (you know, the cube that ends up in the post-cred for the next movie and sorta is the main plot point of the climax of phase I?) So if Tony hadn't figured it out on his own Fury could have filled him in more. Or maybe Howard was a paranoid person (Howard Hughes comparison?) that didn't trust anyone with the new element and planned to pass the knowledge on to Tony when he was older. Of course Hydra killed him before he could do that.

Reading my signature constitutes admission that I am correct. (Too late)

Maybe I am being nitpicky, but let's address the elephant in the room. You can't INVENT a new element. An element is defined by the number of protons in the nucleus. All the known ones are on the Periodic Table. Tony was using Palladium (46 protons). But since he was having a bad reaction to it, he had to find an alternative. The Periodic Table currently goes up to 118. Everything above 92 is radioactive and unstable. They quickly decay into other elements.

But, let's assume he was able to formulate an element with 119 protons or greater, and make it stable so it did not decay. Of course, it would probably need to be radioactive to be a good power source? Wait! Palladium is not radioactive. Okay, maybe its an irradiated Palladium core?

But let's go back to the Wallyworld layout. It had all these different sized and shaped buildings which when combined made up this new element. Elements are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Couldn't Dad have just given him three numbers and said "Figure it out".

Here is my theory. What he invented was a new MOLECULE. A molecule is made up of two or more atoms and is typically stable. The different buildings in the layout each represented the atomic structure of the atoms (elements) that made up this new molecule.

Of course, it's just a movie. Your thoughts?