Question
Question: The symbol of Sb stands for antimony. A. True B. False...
The symbol of Sb stands for antimony.
A. True
B. False
Solution
Hint: To answer this question, we must first understand how the symbols for individual elements are assigned. Antimony is a lustrous grey metalloid having atomic number 51 in the modern periodic table.
Complete step by step answer:
So far we have learned that a chemical symbol is a short-hand way to represent an element. Each element on the periodic table is assigned a unique chemical symbol to prevent confusion. Each element is represented by a chemical symbol consisting of letters now. But when there were only a few elements known, early chemists used to utilize icons to refer to them.All of the 118 elements on the modern periodic table have chemical symbols represented by the first or the first two letters of the name of the element. If the chemical symbol has two letters the first letter is always in uppercase and the second letter is written in lowercase. For chemical symbols that consist of one letter, that letter is always in uppercase. For example, C represents carbon, Ca for calcium, O for oxygen. There are some other elements whose symbols are derived from their Latin names. For example the symbol
for gold is Au which comes from its Latin name Aurum and Silver is Ag due to its Latin name Argentum. Similarly, Antimony is designated Sb by virtue of its Latin name Stibium.
Hence, the correct answer is Option (A) True.
Note: An interesting point to note is Antimony was named after the Greek words anti and monos which means “a metal not found alone.” This is because Antimony is always found in nature as a sulphide.