In chemistry and atomic physics, main group elements are elements in groups (periodic columns) whose lightest members are represented by helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine as arranged in the periodic table of the elements. Main group elements include elements (except hydrogen) in groups 1 and 2 (s-block), and groups 13 to 18 (p-block). Group 12 elements are usually considered to be transition metals; however, zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), and mercury (Hg) share some properties of both groups, and some scientists believe they should be included as main group elements.
In older nomenclature the main group elements are groups IA and IIA, and groups IIIB to 0 (CAS groups IIIA to VIIIA).
Main group elements (with some of the lighter transition metals) are the most abundant elements on the earth, in the solar system, and in the universe. They are sometimes called the representative elements.
Famous quotes containing the words main, group and/or element:
“But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward, the voices of Duty call—
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.”
—Sidney Lanier (1842–1881)
“He hung out of the window a long while looking up and down the street. The world’s second metropolis. In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight and the voices of a group of boys kidding and quarreling on the steps of a house opposite, in the regular firm tread of a policeman, he felt a marching like soldiers, like a sidewheeler going up the Hudson under the Palisades, like an election parade, through long streets towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately. Metropolis.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank.”
—Rose Macaulay (1881–1958)