Hydrogen is the simplest element. One proton, and one electron. It’s the most abundant element, it makes up pretty much 75% of the entire universe we see.
You can make heavier elements by fusing simpler elements together. By how do you “make” hydrogen?
According to what we know about physics, hydrogen (along with helium) was formed very shortly after the Big Bang.
So, basically all the hydrogen atoms around us (in the plants, animals, and the oceans) are billions of years old, the net result of creation of our universe. They’re like the “Fossil” atoms from the beginning of time.
The heavy elements (carbon, silicon, gold, lead, etc) were formed much later, inside of stars.
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If you throw a rock up, it comes down.
If you do this at fast enough speed, it will never come down and will keep going into space.
That’s called Escape Velocity and it depends on the surface gravity. On Earth, escape velocity is about 25,000 miles an hour.
Gas molecules in our atmosphere randomly move around like tiny bouncing billiard balls. They do this at incredibly high speed.
Some of the lighter molecules (hydrogen and helium) can actually exceed escape velocity, and can therefore escape earth. This is why you hardly find these gases in our atmosphere.
On the other hand, heaver gas molecules (oxygen and nitrogen) travel below escape velocity. This is why they’re so abundant: they’re bound by earth’s gravity.
So remember, …when you pop that helium balloon, all that gas is eventually lost. Molecule by molecule, the helium will slowly makes its way towards outer space, never to come back.
That’s why helium is a non-renewable resource.
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For fuel-cell-powered cars, it would be nice to concentrate the hydrogen fuel into a liquid form, for storage and transportation.
But at normal ambient temperatures, you can’t liquefy hydrogen, not even if you compress the Be-Geezus out of it.
It’s not like people are lazy and not trying.
No, it’s just the way the physical properties of hydrogen work.
You can’t get liquid hydrogen unless you go down to several hundred degrees below zero.
That’s one of the challenges for fuel-cell powered cars:
How do you store large enough quantities of hydrogen aboard, without having to install a cryogenic storage system? Or without building huge reinforced compressed gas tanks?
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In my opinion, the LAMEST natural-occurring element ever is Astatine.
At any given moment, there is no more than 1 ounce of it the entire Earth’s crust.
(I mean, really…at those levels, what’s the whole POINT, even?)
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Useless bit of trivia here.
All the metallic elements look relatively similar…shiny and silvery.
The only metals with color are copper and gold.
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If you leave a bowl of water out, it evaporates. The molecules turn to gas, and dissipate.
Actually, everything evaporates. Even metals like iron and gold.
(Just NOT that quickly, mind you!) But they do. In tiny quantities, that we can measure.
Leave a gold brick out, come back in a jillion years, and it will be gone.
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The densest element is Osmium, at 22.6 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3).
For comparison, lead is 11.3 g/cm3.
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What’s the most expensive element?
It’s not gold, or platinum, or palladium.
It’s Californium: a man-made radioactive element that’s only synthesized in microscopic quantities.
It costs something on the order of $30,000,000 a gram.
(Or hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars a pound.)
Not surprisingly, they haven’t made too much of it.
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My favorite element name (and my niece’s too) is:
Unununium.
That’s what they call Element Number 111.
It’s chemical symol is Uuu. 
Except now they’ve recently changed the official name to Roentgenium.
(Though I admit, I kinda like the old name better!)
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Putting aside the nuclear threat, Plutonium is pretty amazing, when you come to think about it.
It wasn’t mined and extracted from ore. It was MADE by us humans.
We basically fiddled around with the nucleus of uranium atoms, and MADE a new element
And not just in tiny amounts. But big chunks of it. A new metal that we can see and touch, with it’s own melting points and density, and other physical properties.
And we didn’t just make plutonium, but all the trans-uranium elements as well.
This isn’t just mixing chemicals here…we’ve synthesized ELEMENTS…the Fundamental Building Blocks of the Universe!
Not bad, I think, for hairless cave-apes that not too long ago were trying to figure out how to use fire.
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