9781422279502

Silver: INTRODUCTION

Introduction

W hen you woke up this morning and got ready to start your day, did you look in the mirror? Did you put on a favorite piece of jewelry before having some breakfast? If you were in a hurry, perhaps you just quickly shoveled in some cereal with a big spoon while checking your cell phone for text messages. You were able to do all of that because of elements. Every single thing around you—the solids, liquids, and gases—is composed of elements of the periodic table. The pe- riodic table is an arrangement of all the naturally occurring,

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND isotope an atom of a specific element that has a different number of neutrons; it has the same atomic number but a different atomic mass

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