11 definitions by CHNOPS
The 74th element that is forever linked to its unbelievable strength. Tungsten is everything a metal should be: it's heavy, strong, conductive, alloyable, and shiny. It even forms crystals. Although its tensile strength is the best out of any metal, its impact strength is straight ass. If you were to make a sledgehammer out of Tungsten and hit it against something sturdy, the head of the hammer would blow itself to pieces. Despite this, Tungsten is still widely used for its tensile strength. It is a major component in some steels, offering a huge boost in durability and strength and sending the melting point of the latter into space. Tungsten's name is directly translated into "heavy stone" from Swedish (Tung Sten). Its previous name "Wolfram" comes from the chief ore of Tungsten, Wolframite. This in turn means "the devourer of Tin" in Germanic, due to the fact that Tungsten interferes with the process of smelting Tin.
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020
The 10th element with the symbol Ne. Neon is one of the most well-known noble gases, largely due to the fact that it is used in Neon signs and lights that pop up on fast-food diners and companies that want customers badly. Despite being the most famous out of all the noble gases, it is quite uncommon in our atmosphere, with Argon - another fellow noble gas - being 23x more abundant than Neon. Like the rest of the other gases in its group, Neon is 100% inert and antisocial, and will not tolerate participating in reactions with other chemicals. It is also monatomic, meaning that it occurs as a single atom, unlike Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and the halogens, which occur as two tightly-bonded atoms due to their high reactivity. Neon derived its name from the Greek "Neos", which meant "new". And at the time of its discovery (1898), an invincible gas that could emit a red glow from excitement would be considered "new".
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020
The 29th element with the symbol Cu and a beautiful pink-orange hue. Copper is a huge multi-tasker metal, with decorative, industrial, plumbing, electronic, and culinary uses, making it extremely useful in everyday life. Most of its practical applications make use of Copper's availability and conductivity. It is widespread in many countries, and is easily accessible. Copper is also the 2nd most conductive metal. In addition to being common and a great transmitter, it is very soft, allowing it to be bent into many different shapes easily. However, as good as Copper may seem, it is chemically reactive in the air, quickly developing a black tarnish that ruins the orange-y hue that many people love. It is also too soft; requiring the support of other metals for strength. The name "Copper" comes from the Latin "Cuprum", meaning "from the island of Cyprus". The Romans discovered that this metal was abundant on Cyprus, and mined large quantities of it.
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020
Element #87, with the symbol Fr. Francium is the exact opposite of stable, decaying in a matter of nanoseconds. Its most stable isotope, Francium-223, decays in only 22 minutes. It is extremely radioactive, and has no uses besides being a space-filler on the periodic table. One could say that it could be used as a weapon, but the fact that only 30 grams of the stuff can exist on Earth at a time would rule out that suggestion. Single Francium atoms are also fiendishly difficult to synthesize. These factors effectively make Francium forever useless and obsolete. Francium was named after France, where it was discovered in Paris.
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020
Element #34 with the symbol Se. Selenium usually comes as a smooth, black, glossy solid, like a chunk of sexy chocolate. It can also occur as a red powder, which is much more reactive than the black counterpart. Selenium has many applications in today's world, such as being a key ingredient in vitamin supplements and shampoos, solar cells, photoconductors, batteries, fertilizers, and glass production. One property unique to Selenium is that it is quite sensitive to light. This strange characteristic paved the way for the development of solar panels and other devices that utilise light/electricity. Selenium gets its name from the Greek "Selene", which means "moon". The reason for this is because at the time of its discovery, Selenium was placed directly above Tellurium on the periodic table. And Tellurium's name was derived from the Latin "Tellus", which meant "earth". It made perfect sense to name an element after a celestial body with correlation to another similarly-named element.
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020
Element #76 with the symbol Os, a.k.a. the bluest metal in the world. Although it might seem pretty, Osmium is far from being good jewelry or building material, unless you want things with unbelievably high costs. It's a relatively non-toxic substance, granted that you don't combine it with Oxygen. Its name comes from the Greek word "Osme", which means "smell", "scent", or "odor". This definition refers to the nasty volatile compound that occurs when you mix Oxygen with the latter. It's also an extremely heavy metal, weighing 5x more than Lead does.
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020
The 22nd element, well-known for being exceptionally strong, tough, and hard-as-balls, making it the universal definition of metals in general. Titanium is a moderately common metal, ranking #7 as most abundant. It has many practical applications, ranging from the production of aircraft/spacecraft hulls, to biomedical implants, and catalysts to produce certain plastics. Even though Titanium is lightweight, strong, and durable, it has a crappy conductivity and has zero use in electrical goods. It also reacts with Oxygen at high temperatures, forming an oxide layer on its surface which alters some of its properties. The two metals that rival Titanium's strength are Zirconium and Tungsten. Titanium derives its name directly from the Titans in Greek Mythology, because of how powerful and strong the Titans were.
I've got balls of Titanium.
by CHNOPS July 9, 2020