Thomas Alva Edison is probably a familiar name to everyone. He was an inventor who is credited with the invention of light bulb.
After so many trial and error experiments with metal for the filaments, he came across a metal which was suitable for the bulbs. It was none other than tungsten.
Tungsten is most used for the filaments of light bulbs and other types of lighting, because it has the highest melting point of all the metals. It ranges in colour from a steely grey, to almost white.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele, a German-Swedish chemist, hypothesized the existence of tungsten in 1781. Two years later, Spanish chemists, Jose and Fausto Elhuyar isolated tungsten.
The name tungsten comes from the Swedish words ‘tung sten’, meaning heavy stone. Tungsten is the heaviest of all elements known to play a biological role. Tungsten is resistant to attack by alkali, oxygen, and acids. Production of tungsten is difficult, due to its high melting point.
It has the atomic number 74, and its atomic symbol is W.
The symbol comes from its alternative name wolfram used by German tin miners.
Picture credit: google