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