11 definition by CHNOPS

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.

The 53rd element that occurs as a grey crystalline solid. It gives off a pretty, toxic, magenta-coloured vapour when heated, that should NOT be inhaled under any circumstance. It is one of two naturally-occurring halogens that crystallize at room temperature (the other being Astatine). Iodine's name comes from the Greek "Iodes", which means "violet-coloured".

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.

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.

The 51st semi-metallic element. Antimony has been known since ancient times, as well as its high toxicity. It's an extremely brittle substance that'll form a dust if you crush it, and'll fuck with your lungs if you breathe it. It has its uses in alloys for Type Metal, and compounds for flame-resistance. It's also paired up with Lead for use in electronic goods. The name "Antimony" is formed from the Greek words "Anti" (not) and "Monos" (alone/single), meaning "A metal not found alone". This refers to the fact that it doesn't like being left uncombined, and its ability to form many compounds with other elements to create minerals such as Stibnite (Antimony sulfide), or Dyscrasite (Silver antimonide).

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.

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".