the.com/wolfram

The element tungsten's German alias, proving one metal can live two lives.

means Wolfram is the older, German-derived name for the metallic element tungsten (symbol W), the super-dense metal used in filaments, heavy alloys, and armor-piercing cores.

from From German 'Wolfram' (literally 'wolf' + 'Rahm'/'soot' or 'cream'), the name given to the mineral wolframite by miners — the folk story holds it was called 'wolf's froth' or 'wolf's soot' because the mineral was said to devour tin during smelting the way a wolf devours sheep, ruining the tin yield by frothing it away as dross. The name stuck to the element itself, which is why tungsten's chemical symbol is W even in English, where the metal is otherwise called by the Swedish-derived 'tungsten' (heavy stone).

symbol origin
W comes from wolfram, not tungsten
name meaning
literally wolf foam in old German mining slang
also means
Stephen Wolfram borrowed it for Mathematica's brand
melting point
highest of any metal, 3422 degrees celsius
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