13 Metals

by Deb on January 20, 2011

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{ 11 comments }

Colleen - Sunrise Learning Lab January 20, 2011 at 9:51 am

Very cool post! We have a neat book about the elements called The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every known Atom in the Universe so I am going to have to bookmark this post so that as we cover the metals, we can refer back to it and can link back to it as well. As always, I love your posts!
Thanks for sharing.
Colleen:)
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Janet January 20, 2011 at 12:52 pm

why are some of the metal’s names on the Periodic Chart their first two letters and others letters that seemingly have nothing to do with the name…like Silver – Ag? I presume Iron – Fe is from ferrite?

Deb January 20, 2011 at 1:05 pm: When a lot of the symbols were being decided Latin was still the important academic language, so a lot of the older elemental symbols come from the latin names.
Silver = Argentum
Gold = Aurum
Tin = Stannum
Copper = Cuprum
Iron = Ferrum
Tungsten = Wolfram, that one is actually German.

We still have a lot of words based on those roots, such as argent and aura.

Shailender @ Romantic Getaways January 20, 2011 at 9:40 pm

Really interesting info about metals. I never give much attention but nice to read about them.
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A Redhead Named Sam January 20, 2011 at 10:54 pm

What an informative post, thank you!

Xakara January 20, 2011 at 11:10 pm

Informative and intriguing as usual!

Happy TT,

~Xakara
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CountryDew January 20, 2011 at 11:53 pm

I enjoyed reading this and thinking about metals. I love reaching about alchemy in fantasy books – metals to gold – and have always found that an interesting idea. I did not know silver was the most abundant metal. I wonder how one finds that in nature, other than in a mine?
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Deb February 12, 2011 at 10:02 am: I hadn’t thought of it that way either, but if all the common ones are ores, that would make silver the most common as a metal. It can be panned from streams alluvially the same as gold, but I think it’s mostly mined.
And this is only in the crust – most of the earth’s core is iron and nickel.

Harriet January 21, 2011 at 1:22 am