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(as of ‘5 june 2022’)
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(the first 94 occur ‘naturally’ on ‘earth’…)
(…with the remaining 24 being ‘synthetic elements’)
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(“atomic number” –> # of protons in the nucleus)
(elements are arranged by “atomic number”)
(beginning with “1”)
(the properties of the chemical elements are summarized on the “periodic table”, which organizes the elements by increasing atomic number into rows (“periods”) in which the columns (“groups”) share recurring (“periodic”) physical and chemical properties)
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[(a (chemical) element is a ‘chemical substance’ consisting of ‘atoms’ having the same # of ‘protons’ in their ‘atomic nuclei’]
(IE – the same ‘atomic number’ Z)
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(there are 80 elements that have at least 1 stable isotope and 38 that have exclusively ‘radioactive isotopes’, which ‘decay’ over time into other elements)
(“iron” is the most abundant element (by ‘mass’) making up the earth, while “oxygen” is the most common element in the ‘crust’ of the ‘earth’)
(‘chemical elements’ constitute approximately 15% of the matter in the “universe”: the remainder is “dark matter”, the composition of which is unknown, but it is not composed of ‘chemical elements’)
(the 2 lightest elements, “hydrogen” and “helium” were mostly formed in the “big bang” and are the most common elements in the ‘universe’)
(the next 3 elements (“lithium”, “beryllium” and “boron”) were formed mostly by “cosmic ray spallation”, and are thus more rare than those that follow)
(formation of elements with from 6 to 26 protons occurred and continues to occur in “main sequence stars” via “stellar nucleosynthesis”)
(the high abundance of “oxygen”, “silicon”, and “iron” on earth reflects their common production in such ‘stars’)
(elements with greater than 26 protons are formed by “supernova nucleosynthesis” in “supernovae”, which, when they explode, blast these elements far into space as “planetary nebulae”, where they may become incorporated into ‘planets’ when they are formed)
(when different elements are chemically combined, with the atoms held together by chemical bonds, they form “chemical compounds”)
(only a minority of elements are found uncombined as relatively pure ‘minerals’)
(among the more common of such “native elements” are ‘copper’, ‘silver’, ‘gold’, ‘carbon’ (as ‘coal’, ‘graphite’, or ‘diamonds’), and ‘sulfur’)
(all but a few of the most ‘inert’ elements, such as “noble gases” and “noble metals”, are usually found on earth in ‘chemically combined form’, as “chemical compounds”)
(among the more common of such “native elements” are ‘copper’, ‘silver’, ‘gold’, ‘carbon’ (as ‘coal’, ‘graphite’, or ‘diamonds’), and “sulfur”)
(while about 32 of the chemical elements occur on ‘earth’ in ‘native uncombined forms’, most of these occur as “mixtures”)
(for example, “atmospheric air” is primarily a mixture of “nitrogen”, “oxygen”, and “argon”, and native solid elements occur in “alloys”, such as that of “iron” and “nickel”)
(the history of the discovery and use of the elements began with primitive human societies that found native elements like ‘carbon’, ‘sulfur’, ‘copper’, and ‘gold’)
(later civilizations extracted elemental “copper”, “tin”, “lead” and “iron” from their “ores” by “smelting”, using “charcoal”)
(‘alchemists’ + (regular?) ‘chemists’ subsequently identified many more, with almost all of the ‘naturally-occurring elements’ becoming known by ‘1900’)
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(save for ‘unstable radioactive elements’ with short ‘half-lives’, all of the elements are available industrially, most of them in high degrees of ‘purity’)
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*🌈✨ *TABLE OF CONTENTS* ✨🌷*
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🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥*we won the war* 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥