Elements Less Commonly Recognized As Metalloids
There is no universally agreed or rigorous definition of the term metalloid. So the answer to the question "Which elements are metalloids?" can vary, depending on the author and their inclusion criteria. Emsley, for example, recognized only four: germanium, arsenic, antimony and tellurium. James et al., on the other hand, listed twelve: boron, carbon, silicon, germanium, arsenic, selenium, antimony, tellurium, bismuth, polonium, ununpentium and livermorium. As of 2011 the list of metalloid lists recorded an average of just over seven elements classified as metalloids, per list of metalloids, based on a sample size of 194 lists.
The absence of a standardized division of the elements into metals, metalloids and nonmetals is not necessarily an issue. There is a more or less continuous progression from the metallic to the nonmetallic. A specified subset of this continuum can potentially serve its particular purpose as well as any other. In any event, individual metalloid classification arrangements tend to share common ground (as described above) with most variations occurring around the indistinct margins, as surveyed below.
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Famous quotes containing the words elements, commonly and/or recognized:
“In verse one can take any damn constant one likes, one can alliterate, or assone, or rhyme, or quant, or smack, only one MUST leave the other elements irregular.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper proved trustworthy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“By all but the pathologically romantic, it is now recognized that this is not the age of the small man.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)