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The chemical elements can be broadly divided into metals, metalloids, and nonmetals according to their shared physical and chemical properties.All elemental metals have a shiny appearance (at least when freshly polished); are good conductors of heat and electricity; form alloys with other metallic elements; and have at least one basic oxide.
Like the periodic table, the list below organizes the elements by the number of protons in their atoms; it can also be organized by other properties, such as atomic weight, density, and electronegativity. For more detailed information about the origins of element names, see List of chemical element name etymologies.
Mineral symbols (text abbreviations) are used to abbreviate mineral groups, subgroups, and species, just as lettered symbols are used for the chemical elements. The first set of commonly used mineral symbols was published in 1983 and covered the common rock-forming minerals using 192 two- or three-lettered symbols. [ 1 ]
Iron is the most widely used of all the metals, accounting for over 90% of worldwide metal production. Its low cost and high strength often make it the material of choice to withstand stress or transmit forces, such as the construction of machinery and machine tools , rails , automobiles , ship hulls , concrete reinforcing bars , and the load ...
The astrological symbol for the planet became one of the alchemical symbols for the metal, and Mercury became an alternative name for the metal. Mercury is the only metal for which the alchemical planetary name survives, as it was decided it was preferable to quicksilver as a chemical name. [30] [31]
In alchemy the symbol for copper was also the symbol for the goddess and planet Venus. Chalcolithic copper mine in Timna Valley, Negev Desert, Israel. In Greece, copper was known by the name chalkos (χαλκός). It was an important resource for the Romans, Greeks and other ancient peoples.
This line has been called the amphoteric line, [2] the metal-nonmetal line, [3] the metalloid line, [4] [5] the semimetal line, [6] or the staircase. [2] [n 1] While it has also been called the Zintl border [8] or the Zintl line [9] [10] these terms instead refer to a vertical line sometimes drawn between groups 13 and 14.
A metalloid is an element that possesses a preponderance of properties in between, or that are a mixture of, those of metals and nonmetals, and which is therefore hard to classify as either a metal or a nonmetal. This is a generic definition that draws on metalloid attributes consistently cited in the literature.