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Cesium is silver not gold and will never get old.
Watch it be put in atomic clocks, when you
learn more about it you'll see that it rocks. |
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Commercial Uses: In places like West Virginia, cesium is used found in some potassium rich clays, micas and feldspars. It can also be found in Internet and cell phone transmissions, DNA separation techniques, infrared detectors, night vision devises, photoelectric cells, and traffic controls. Cancer patients may know that cesium is used in their treatments; an encapsulated cesium-137 source is placed in their bodies. |
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Historical Background: In places like West Virginia, cesium is used found in some potassium rich clays, micas and feldspars. It can also be found in Internet and cell phone transmissions, DNA separation techniques, infrared detectors, night vision devises, photoelectric cells, and traffic controls. Cancer patients may know that cesium is used in their treatments; an encapsulated cesium-137 source is placed in their bodies. |
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Hazards: When cesium is breathed in, it will irritated your lungs and causes you to cough and/or have shortness of breath, and be absorbed through your skin. On contact, cesium can cause your eyes to be irritated and will cause severe skin burns. If you have a bad headache or nausea around cesium, it may be affecting you. Some safety precautions include flushing eyes with water for at least 15 minutes, get the victim to fresh air and get medical attention, or give them plenty of water. This element is most corrosive when exposed to your skin, eyes, or mucous membranes. One of the biggest dangers with cesium is that it is highly flammable and carries an explosion hazard. |
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The Atom: Cesium’s atomic weight is 132.9054, its atomic radius is 265.4, its melting point is at 28.5 c, and its boiling point is at 671 c. One thing that makes cesium special is the fact that it has the most isotopes out of all the other elements, it has 32. Their masses range from 114 to 145. Although it has many isotopes, it only has one naturally occurring stable isotope, 133Cs, the other ones have half-lives that span from a fraction of a second to a few days. |
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Industrial Uses: In the future, cesium is probably going to be used in spacecrafts as their ion propulsion system. Cesium can also be found in Global positioning satellites, and missile guidance systems. In my opinion, cesium’s most important role is the one it plays in atomic clocks. The cesium beam atomic clock and the rubidium clock are the most widely used clocks in recent years. They provide the accuracy necessary to test general relativity. |
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| Table |
| Symbol |
Cs |
| Atomic Number |
55 |
| Atomic Mass |
132.91 |
| State |
Solid |
| Family |
Alkali Metal |
Cesium is a Alkali metal, to see another example, go to this site. |
| Glossary |
| Atomic Clock |
An extremely accurate electronic clock regulated by the resonance frequency of atoms or molecules of certain substances, as cesium. |
| Filament |
A very fine thread or threadlike structure; a fiber or fibril: filaments of gold. |
| Spectroscopy |
The science that deals with the use of the spectroscope and with spectrum analysis. |
| Encapsulated |
To place in or as if in a capsule. |
| Photoelectric |
Pertaining to the electronic or other electric effects produced by light. |
| Spectrum |
An array of entities, as light waves or particles, ordered in accordance with the magnitudes of a common physical property, as wavelength or mass: often the band of colors produced when sunlight is passed through a prism, comprising red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. |
| Nausea |
Sickness at the stomach, esp. when accompanied by a loathing for food and an involuntary impulse to vomit. |
| Flammable |
Easily set on fire; combustible; inflammable. |
| Bibliography |
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25 Feb. 2009 <http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/Cs.html#Overview>.
Stwertka, Albert. A Guide To The Elements. New York: Oxford UP, 1996, 2002.
Newton, David E. Chemical Elements A-F. Farmington Hills: UXL, 1999.
"Chemical Elements.com - Cesium (Cs)." Chemical Elements.com - An Interactive Periodic Table of the Elements. 25 Feb. 2009 <http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/cs.html>.
"Cesium." 25 Feb. 2009 <http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/55.html>.
Cesium. Digital image. Wikimedia Commons. 25 Feb. 2009 <http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Cesium.svg/424px-Cesium.svg.png&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cesium.svg&usg=__ZzL_3wvFHcHXFZWfGbGpLILp-t8=&h=600&w=424&sz=28&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=waTtxebjS0uAyM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCesium%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN>.
"Caesium -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 25 Feb. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium>. |
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