Halka M., Nordstrom B. Periodic Table of the Elements: Metals and Metalloids

Facts on File, Inc., NY, USA, 2011. — 193 p. — ISBN: 9780816073702Speculations about the nature of matter date back to ancient Greek philosophers like Thales, who lived in the sixth century b.c.e., and Democritus, who lived in the fifth century b.c.e., and to whom we credit the first theory of atoms. It has taken two and a half millennia for natural philosophers and, more recently, for chemists and physicists to arrive at a modern understanding of the nature of elements and compounds. By the 19th century, chemists such as John Dalton of England had learned to define elements as pure substances that contain only one kind of atom. It took scientists like the British physicists Joseph John Thomson and Ernest Rutherford in the early years of the 20th century, however, to demonstrate what atoms are—entities composed of even smaller and more elementary particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons. These particles give atoms their properties and, in turn, give elements their physical and chemical properties.Overview: Chemistry and Physics Background
Post-transition Metals
Aluminum
Gallium
Indium and Thallium
Tin
Lead and Bismuth
Metalloids
Boron
Silicon and Germanium
Arsenic and Antimony
Tellurium and Polonium
Conclusions and Future Directions