There remained, then, only two possible solutions of the question, which created two distinct parties: on one side, those who were for a monster of colossal strength; on the other, those who were for a submarine vessel of enormous motive power.
Gold is the most malleable of all metals; a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be beaten thin enough to become semi-transparent.
This is different from ionic bonding (where no electrons are shared at all) and covalent bonding (where the bonds exist only between two atoms). A metal that you can hammer into thin sheets is malleable. Gold, silver, aluminum, iron, and copper are malleable. Non-malleable metals such as tin will break apart when struck by a hammer. A metal behaves as an array of metal ions or kernels immersed in a âseaâ of mobile valence electrons. Metallic bonds consist of the attractions of the ions to the surrounding electrons.