Questions:

1. Just five nonmetals account for most of the earth’s atmosphere, crust, and the oceans. They are carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, and ________. Fill in the blank. Hint: This element is the most abundant in the universe, forming only 370,000 years after the Big Bang.

2. Most nonmetals are either solids or gases at room temperature and pressure. The sole exception is _______, which is a liquid. Its surface often features a top of burgundy-hued fumes; you may have encountered them if you took chemistry in high school. Fill in the blank.

3. Elements whose properties are a mix of those of metals and nonmetals are called metalloids. Many of them are not very expensive but two in particular are more expensive than gold, with an estimated cost of around $100 million per gram in 2013. Name them.

4. Only three nonmetals exhibit both good thermal conductivity and good electrical conductivity. Two of them are carbon and arsenic. Name the third. Hint: Its chemical symbol is Sb, and there is considerable confusion about the origins of its name itself.

5. In X’s theory of metals, the Sun’s heat causes the earth to exhale either a dry vapour or a moist vapour. Within the earth, X continued, the moist vapour produced metals and the dry one nonmetals. Name X.

Visual:

The American chemicals company DuPont first discovered the compound shown above, a polymer of carbon (grey) and fluorine (green) atoms, in 1938. It is famously water-repellent. What is its brand name?

Answers:

1. Hydrogen

2. Bromine

3. Polonium and astatine

4. Antimony

5. Aristotle

Visual: Teflon