Curated category
Chemical elements with face-centered cubic structure
- NickelNickel, element 28 on the periodic table, takes its name from a mischievous sprite of German miner mythology. In the ore mountains of medieval Germany…
- YtterbiumYtterbium takes its name from a village in Sweden called Ytterby, a place so rich in rare-earth elements that it lent its name to four separate entries on…
- LeadLead carries the chemical symbol Pb, drawn from the Latin word plumbum, and it sits at atomic number 82 on the periodic table.
- AluminiumAluminium is the most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, making up 8.23% of it by mass, yet for most of human history no one had ever seen a piece of it.
- PlatinumPlatinum sits at atomic number 78 on the periodic table, but its story stretches back to pre-Columbian South America, where native peoples worked it into…
- EinsteiniumEinsteinium, element 99 on the periodic table, was born in the fire of history's most destructive weapon. On the 1st of November 1952, the United States…
- SilverSilver carries the chemical symbol Ag and the atomic number 47. That symbol comes from argentum, the Latin word for the metal, and it hides a small mystery.
- CalciumCalcium surrounds us in ways most people never think about. Symbol Ca, atomic number 20, it makes up roughly 3% of the Earth's crust, making it the fifth…
- PalladiumPalladium, the silvery-white metal with atomic number 46, carries a name born from astronomical discovery. When the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston…
- RhodiumRhodium carries the symbol Rh and the atomic number 45, and it holds the distinction of being among the rarest and most valuable metals on Earth.
- IridiumIridium carries the symbol Ir and the atomic number 77, and it answers to a name borrowed from a goddess of the rainbow.
- GoldGold carries the chemical symbol Au, from the Latin aurum, and the atomic number 79. It is one of the least reactive elements known, sitting second from the…