Professor Ron B. Davis Jr.

Cobalt can emit radiation for decades, making the existing nuclear bomb more devastating. Yet, it has uses in batteries, aircraft alloys, and radiological medicine, making it a valuable element. […]

Iron has helped humans historically by giving access to sturdy tools. Biologically, too, it is a lifeline as hemoglobin needs iron to hold on to oxygen molecules in the lungs. […]

Vanadium was valued by Ford Motors in their manufacture of the legendary Model T. A tiny amount of it make a steel alloy much stronger, a property shared by molybdenum. Titanium dioxide has a high opacity when powdered, making it of value in the paint industry. […]

Niobium and tantalum, when alloyed with steel and other metals become extremely strong. Their application and use extends from gas pipelines to aerospace applications. […]

Transition metals are capable of making alloys with unusual heat resistance or even lightweight alloys, valuable in jet fighters. Some of them are also precious stones, stunning in their beauty and color. […]

Technetium provides corrosion resistance to steel. In addition, when cooled to 11° above absolute zero it also becomes a superconductor. It is this property that might one day expand its use so much so that its radioactivity might be tolerated. […]

Mercury’s low melting point could only be explained by the middle of the 20th century, as it was only around that time that physicists began using the theory of relativity with respect to the behavior of atoms. […]

The atomic radius, in d-block elements, tends to decrease gradually as we move from left to right. But as we move down, one has to take into consideration the f-subshell filling that occurs in period 6, prior to the d-subshell filling. […]

There are five exceptions to the Aufbau filling order that one can predict using filled and half-filled subshells. The last one is with respect to platinum, which takes on a 6s1 4f14 5d9 configuration. […]