Curated playlist
Chemical elements with body-centered cubic structure
- EuropiumEuropium is a metal so soft you can slice it with a kitchen knife. It also glows red inside color television screens.
- ChromiumThe same element that makes rubies red also makes emeralds green. That element is chromium, first isolated in 1797.
- MolybdenumMolybdenum got its name from the Greek word for lead by mistake. For centuries its ores were confused with lead ores.
- PotassiumPotassium is a metal soft enough to slice with a kitchen knife. Dropped in water, it bursts into a lilac-colored flame.
- NiobiumNiobium was so much like tantalum that top chemists could not tell them apart.
- ManganeseIn 1972 the CIA used manganese mining as cover for a secret ship mission.
- BariumBarium was first noticed in glowing stones near Bologna, Italy. The pebbles glowed in the dark for years.
- VanadiumA mineralogist found vanadium in 1801, then dropped his claim when a French chemist said he was wrong.
- IronThe earliest iron tools were hammered from rocks that fell from the sky.
- TantalumTantalum, a metal in almost every phone, was named for a myth about never reaching water.
- TungstenTungsten melts at 3422 C and does not boil until 5930 C, and no other known element matches either figure. Tungsten is also called wolfram, which is why its chemical symbol is W, and it is element 74. Its weight is just as striking as its…
- CaesiumCaesium is the element that tells the world what a second is. Since 1967, the second has been defined as 9,192,631,770 cycles of microwave light tied to a transition in caesium-133 atoms. The metal behind that number is a soft,…
- SodiumSodium, the element with the symbol Na, revealed itself in 1860 from the far corner of a 60 cubic metre room. There the chemists Kirchhoff and Bunsen set off 3 milligrams of sodium chlorate mixed with milk sugar, as far as possible from…
- RadiumRadium glows in the dark, and it can wreck itself while it does. The radiation from radium bromide excites nitrogen molecules in the surrounding air, so the crystals shine faintly. The alpha particles that radium emits quickly gain two…
- LithiumLithium, the element with atomic number 3, is soft enough to cut with a knife and light enough to float on water. Its density is just 0.534 grams per cubic centimeter, the lowest of any metal under ordinary conditions. Only sodium and…