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What
the name means:
The name Caesium (sometimes spelt cesium)
is derived from the Latin word caesius,
meaning “blue (as the sky)”.
Who
identified
caesium? Caesium
was detected in 1860 by Robert Bunsen and
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff. The two German
scientists were analysing a sample of
mineral water from Dürkheim, in Germany.
They used a spectroscope on the sample and
recognised the spectra from lithium, sodium
and potassium. However, there were two
vivid blue lines that did not correspond to
any known element at that time. Bunsen and
Kirchhoff concluded that they had
identified a new element that they named
caesium because of its emission spectrum.
Twenty years after caesium had been
identified, Carl Setterberg obtained a
sample of the metal by electrolysis.
About
caesium: Caesium
metal is normally liquid at room
temperature since its melting point is
28°C. Like all group 1 metals it will react
with oxygen in the air and it has a violent
reaction with water. It is a soft,
silvery-white metal that has an important
function in atomic clocks. |
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