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Radium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather than oxygen) upon exposure to air, forming a black surface layer of radium nitride (Ra 3 N 2).
A chemical element, often simply called an element, is a type of atom which has a specific number of protons in its atomic nucleus (i.e., a specific atomic number, or Z). [ 1 ] The definitive visualisation of all 118 elements is the periodic table of the elements , whose history along the principles of the periodic law was one of the founding ...
The longest half-lives among them are 1.387 million years for beryllium-10, 99.4 thousand years for calcium-41, 1599 years for radium-226 (radium's longest-lived isotope), 28.90 years for strontium-90, 10.51 years for barium-133, and 5.75 years for radium-228. All others have half-lives of less than half a year, most significantly shorter.
Chemical symbols are the abbreviations used in chemistry, mainly for chemical elements; but also for functional groups, chemical compounds, and other entities. Element symbols for chemical elements, also known as atomic symbols , normally consist of one or two letters from the Latin alphabet and are written with the first letter capitalised.
The first letter is always capitalized. While the symbol is often a contraction of the element's name, it may sometimes not match the element's English name; for example, "Pb" for lead (from Latin plumbum) or "W" for tungsten (from German Wolfram). Elements which have only temporary systematic names are given temporary three-letter symbols (e.g ...
41 of the 118 known elements have names associated with, or specifically named for, places around the world or among astronomical objects. 32 of these have names tied to the places on Earth, and the other nine are named after to Solar System objects: helium for the Sun; tellurium for the Earth; selenium for the Moon; mercury (indirectly), uranium, neptunium and plutonium after their respective ...
Atomic number, Element, and Symbol all serve independently as unique identifiers. Element names are those accepted by IUPAC. Block indicates the periodic table block for each element: red = s-block, yellow = p-block, blue = d-block, green = f-block. Group and period refer to an element's position in the periodic table.
This is a list of chemical elements and their atomic properties, ordered by atomic number (Z). Since valence electrons are not clearly defined for the d-block and f-block elements, there not being a clear point at which further ionisation becomes unprofitable, a purely formal definition as number of electrons in the outermost shell has been used.