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:
“There surely is a being who presides over the universe; and who, with infinite wisdom and power, has reduced the jarring elements into just order and proportion. Let speculative reasoners dispute, how far this beneficent being extends his care, and whether he prolongs our existence beyond the grave, in order to bestow on virtue its just reward, and render it fully triumphant.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The English were very backward to explore and settle the continent which they had stumbled upon. The French preceded them both in their attempts to colonize the continent of North America ... and in their first permanent settlement ... And the right of possession, naturally enough, was the one which England mainly respected and recognized in the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of France, from the time of Henry VII.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)