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Elements |
The Periodic Table |
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Names – origins |
Alternative names |
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Other |
The rows in the periodic table are known as | Periods | |
The columns are known as | Groups |
This section gives the derivations of some of the more commonly–asked element names. For a full list, see Chemical Element Names.
Some of these may be quite hard if asked as they stand – it may help sometimes to give the atomic number.
The first element, alphabetically | Actinium | |
The most abundant metal in the Earth's crust | Aluminium | |
The only metal that expands on cooling (some of its alloys do also) | Antimony | |
The most common inert gas, and the third most abundant gas in the Earth's atmosphere at just under 1% | Argon | |
Frequently used for murder, until the introduction in 1836 of the Marsh test; also detected, along with other metallic elements, by the Reinsch test | Arsenic | |
Widely used in Victorian times, in home decor – especially wallpaper – to give a green colour | ||
Heaviest of the halogens (atomic number 85): 33 isotopes, all radioactive; produced by the decay of uranium–235 and uranium–238 | Astatine | |
Used in a meal that shows up on X–rays | Barium | |
Used in various medicines, for example to treat gastric ulcers | Bismuth | |
The only element apart from mercury that's liquid at room temperature (boils at 59°C); the third lightest halogen, atomic number 35 | Bromine | |
Cited in the SI definition of the second, and used in atomic clocks | Caesium | |
Hardness of water is chiefly caused by ions of | Calcium | |
Magnesium | ||
Present in all organic compounds | Carbon | |
Forms more compounds than any other element apart from hydrogen | ||
Highest melting point of any element (c. 4,000oC) | ||
Second most abundant element (by mass) in the human body, after oxygen | ||
Diamond, graphite, buckminsterfullerene ('Bucky balls'), graphene and the rare lonsdaleite are allotropes of | ||
The more abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon (about 98.89%); used as the standard for atomic weights (replaced oxygen in 1961) | Carbon–12 | |
Radioactive isotope of carbon, used as the basis for carbon dating | Carbon–14 | |
First isolated by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, 1774 | Chlorine | |
Metal impurity that makes ruby red and emerald green | Chromium | |
Added to steel to make stainless steel (see Alloys) | ||
Gives its name to a greenish–blue pigment, which contains its aluminate (atomic number 27) | Cobalt | |
Elements other than iron that produce magnetic fields | Cobalt | |
Nickel | ||
The green flame test is a test for | Copper | |
Atomic number 110: named in 2003 after the German city where it was discovered in 1994 (at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research) | Darmstadtium | |
Rare isotope of hydrogen, with a neutron as well as a proton in its nucleus; atomic weight (approximately) 2; sometimes called heavy hydrogen; its oxide is heavy water | Deuterium | |
Atomic number 100 | Fermium | |
The most electronegative element (i.e. the most likely to attract electrons), and thus it tends to be the most reactive | Fluorine | |
The sun converts hydrogen into | Helium | |
The second most abundant element in the Universe: believed to make up approximately 24% of all matter, by mass, and a similar proportion of all stars, including the Sun (and of Jupiter) | ||
Formed when a hydrogen bomb is detonated; alpha particles are nuclei of | ||
Lowest melting point (–268.9°C) and lowest boiling point (–270.2°C) | ||
The most abundant element in the Universe: believed to make up approximately 75% of all matter, by mass, and a similar proportion of all stars, including the Sun (and of Jupiter) | Hydrogen | |
The lightest gas | ||
Forms more compounds than any other element | ||
Present in all acids | ||
The prefix 'bi–' in the name of a chemical compound (e.g. sodium bicarbonate) indicates the presence of | ||
Protium is the most common isotope of | ||
Used as a test for starch (and vice versa) – together they form a very dark blue–black complex | Iodine | |
Metallic element that's most resistant to corrosion (atomic number 77) | Iridium | |
Metallic element that's present in haemoglobin and myoglobin – two proteins that play essential roles in vertebrate metabolism, respectively the transportation of oxygen by the blood and the storage of oxygen in muscles | Iron | |
The two metallic elements that the Earth's core is thought to be made of | Iron | |
Nickel | ||
Eventual product of the radioactive decay of Uranium | Lead | |
The first metal in the Periodic Table (atomic number 3), and the lightest (relative density 0.534, compared to aluminium's 2.699) | Lithium | |
Metal (atomic number 12) that burns vigorously, with a brilliant white flame, at comparatively low temperatures | Magnesium | |
Found to be present in chlorophyll in 1906 – the first time that it had been detected in living tissue | ||
The first 'trans–Uranic' element (atomic number 93) – created artificially before small naturally–occurring deposits were discovered | Neptunium | |
All proteins contain Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and | Nitrogen | |
78% of the Earth's atmosphere is | Nitrogen | |
Metallic element that's the heaviest known substance (at room temperature) | Osmium | |
Discovered independently by Priestley (1774) and Scheele (1771) | Oxygen | |
Carbohydrates contain carbon, hydrogen and | ||
All compounds ending in –ite must contain | ||
The third most abundant element in the universe (after hydrogen and helium), and the most common in the Earth's crust (49%); also the most abundant, by weight, in the human body (65% – carbon is next at 18.5%) | ||
Highly reactive element: exists in several allotropes including white, red and black; usually stored under water | Phosphorus | |
The thirteenth element to be discovered, and the first that hadn't been known since ancient times: isolated from urine, in 1669, by the German alchemist Hennig Brand | ||
Used to fuel most modern nuclear weapons | Plutonium | |
The second trans–Uranic element (after Neptunium) – atomic number 94 | ||
Atomic number 61: like technetium, it has no stable isotopes and before being found in nature it was produced artificially (in the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, in 1945 – but not announced until 1947) | Promethium | |
The two radioactive elements that were discovered (extracted from pitchblende) by Marie Curie, for which she won the Nobel Physics prize in 1911 | Radium | |
Polonium | ||
Radioactive noble (inert) gas to which radium decomposes | Radon | |
The densest known gas | ||
Longest name (13 letters) – reportedly first detected in 1964 at Dubna in the Soviet Union; synthesised at Berkeley, California in 1969, and independently confirmed in 1973 | Rutherfordium | |
The second most abundant element in the Earth's crust (27% – oxygen 49%) | Silicon | |
Metal with the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity | Silver | |
First in the Periodic Table whose symbol starts with a different letter from its English name (atomic number 11) | Sodium | |
Causes the dark 'D' lines in the sun's spectrum; burns with a yellow flame | ||
Stored in oil because it oxidises rapidly in air and reacts violently with water | ||
Salts used in fireworks to produce a crimson flame; also used in toothpaste | Strontium | |
The word 'pyrites' (pie–RYE–tees or pie–rights), as in 'iron pyrites', indicates the presence of (compounded with a metal) | Sulphur | |
The prefix 'thio–' in the name of a compound indicates that in its structure, an atom of oxygen has been replaced by one of | ||
Described as "lemon yellow sintered microcrystals" in appearance (atomic number 16) | ||
The lowest–numbered element with no stable isotopes (atomic number 43); the first element to have been produced artificially before being found in nature | Technetium | |
Shortest name | Tin | |
Has ten stable isotopes (more than any other element) | ||
Mined, assessed, coined and sold in a stannary (town) | ||
Dioxide used as white pigment for paints, toothpaste, etc. | Titanium | |
Radioactive isotope of hydrogen – atomic weight 3 | Tritium | |
Most commonly used for light–bulb filaments | Tungsten | |
Highest melting point of any metal (3,410 °C) | ||
The most complicated element that occurs naturally (atomic number 92) | Uranium | |
Yellowcake is a stage in the production of | ||
The only fissile isotope, of any element, found in economic quantity in nature; enriched uranium has a higher proportion of it | Uranium–235 | |
The only element whose name begins with X | Xenon | |
Galvanisation involves coating with | Zinc | |
The last element but one, alphabetically | ||
The last element, alphabetically – its oxide is often used as a substitute for diamonds or other gemstones | Zirconium |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–24