Wikijunior:The Elements/Elements

This page has a list of all of the elements. You might also want to check out the Periodic Table page for more info.

Well-known Elements
There's a good chance you've heard of these.

Well-known Metals

 * Gold
 * Iron
 * Silver
 * Copper
 * Aluminum
 * Titanium
 * Nickel
 * Platinum
 * Tin
 * Lead
 * Mercury
 * Lithium
 * Sodium
 * Potassium
 * Calcium
 * Cobalt
 * Zinc
 * Uranium

Well-known Non-metals

 * Oxygen
 * Carbon
 * Nitrogen
 * Arsenic
 * Helium
 * Neon
 * Argon
 * Chlorine
 * Iodine
 * Phosphorus
 * Sulfur

Alkali Metals
These are silver-colored, soft, low-density metals that are highly chemically reactive. They are never found in pure form in nature, tarnish easily, and have low melting points and densities. They react readily with the halogens and with water.


 * Lithium
 * Sodium
 * Potassium
 * Rubidium
 * Cesium
 * Francium

Alkaline Earth Metals
These are silver colored, soft, low-density metals that react with the halogens (but not as readily as the alkali metals do), and with water (except Beryllium).


 * Beryllium
 * Magnesium
 * Calcium
 * Strontium
 * Barium
 * Radium

Rare Earth Metals
The more modern name for these is "inner transition metals". They are highly chemically reactive metals. They catch fire in air very easily, and react with water (which liberates hydrogen from the water). They have higher melting and boiling points than the alkaline earth metals. On the periodic table, these elements are usually kept separate and put right at the bottom, in two rows. This is because the periodic table world be too long, and it wouldn't be able to fit on a piece of paper, if they were put into their proper places.


 * Lanthanum (This is also considered a transition metal.)
 * Cerium
 * Praseodymium
 * Neodymium
 * Promethium
 * Samarium
 * Europium
 * Gadolinium
 * Terbium
 * Dysprosium
 * Holmium
 * Erbium
 * Thulium
 * Ytterbium
 * Lutetium


 * Actinium (This is also considered a transition metal.)
 * Thorium
 * Protactinium
 * Uranium
 * Neptunium
 * Plutonium
 * Americium
 * Curium
 * Berkelium
 * Californium
 * Einsteinium
 * Fermium
 * Medelevium
 * Nobelium
 * Lawrencium

Transition Metals
These are the metals in the middle of the periodic table. Some people exclude zinc, cadmium, and mercury from being transition metals (those are the three in the rightmost column of this part of the table), because the rest of the transition metals have more chemical properties in common with each other than they do with those three. Still, the transition metals have less in common than most other groups of elements in the table do.


 * Scandium
 * Titanium
 * Vanadium
 * Chromium
 * Manganese
 * Iron
 * Cobalt
 * Nickel
 * Copper
 * Zinc (Some people don't count this as a transition metal.)


 * Yttrium
 * Zirconium
 * Niobium
 * Molybdenum
 * Technetium
 * Ruthenium
 * Rhodium
 * Palladium
 * Silver
 * Cadmium (Some people don't count this as a transition metal.)


 * Lanthanum (This is also considered a rare earth metal.)
 * Hafnium
 * Tantalum
 * Tungsten
 * Rhenium
 * Osmium
 * Iridium
 * Platinum
 * Gold
 * Mercury (Some people don't count this as a transition metal.)


 * Actinium (This is also considered a rare earth metal.)
 * Rutherfordium
 * Dubnium
 * Seaborgium
 * Bohrium
 * Hassium
 * Copernicium

Other Metals

 * Aluminum
 * Gallium
 * Indium
 * Tin
 * Thallium
 * Lead
 * Bismuth

Metalloids
These have properties of both metals and non-metals.


 * Boron
 * Silicon
 * Germanium
 * Arsenic
 * Antimony
 * Tellurium
 * Polonium

Noble Gases
At ordinary temperatures and pressures, these are all odorless, colorless gases that are relatively difficult to involve in chemical reactions.


 * Helium
 * Neon
 * Argon
 * Krypton
 * Xenon
 * Radon

Halogens
The halogens are highly chemically reactive, so that in sufficient quantities they can be harmful or lethal to living things. Several of them are used as disinfectants.


 * Fluorine
 * Chlorine
 * Bromine
 * Iodine
 * Astatine

Other Non-metals

 * Hydrogen
 * Carbon
 * Nitrogen
 * Oxygen
 * Phosphorus
 * Sulfur
 * Selenium

Newly discovered elements
Some elements were discovered recently, or are too radioactive for scientists to know which type of element they are. Because of this, their place in the periodic table is only temporary and might change if scientists learn more about them.


 * Darmstadtium
 * Roentgenium
 * Copernicium
 * Nihonium
 * Flerovium
 * Moscovium
 * Livermorium
 * Tenessine
 * Oganesson