the.com/niobium
the metal named after a goddess who cried herself to stone, hiding in your phone.
means Niobium is a soft, gray, corrosion-resistant metallic element (atomic number 41) used in superalloys, steels, and superconducting magnets.
from Named for Niobe of Greek myth — a queen whose boasting cost her all her children and turned her, weeping, to stone. The metal was first isolated in the early 19th century from an ore that also contained the closely related element tantalum, which had been named after Tantalus. Since Tantalus was Niobe's father, the chemist who studied the new element honored the family tie by calling it niobium. For a time, especially in the United States, it was instead called columbium (after Columbia, a poetic name for America), and the two names coexisted until niobium was made the official international standard in the mid-20th century.
- named after
- Niobe, mythic mother turned weeping rock
- superconductor
- powers MRI magnets and particle colliders
- rainbow trick
- anodizes into jewelry colors without any dye
- twin trouble
- confused with tantalum for over 40 years
- stealth strength
- trace amounts toughen steel for pipelines and cars
cbmm — companhia brasileira de metalurgia e mineração produces 80% of world's niobium from araxá, brazil
hsla steel — high-strength low-alloy steel with 0.02-0.1% niobium used in automotive and pipelines since 1970s
jt-60 tokamak — japanese fusion reactor with niobium-titanium superconducting magnets, operational 1985-2009