Chemical element is the most stable element that can easily be made from alpha particles (being a product of decay of radioactive nickel-56, ultimately made from 14 helium nuclei). Elements heavier than iron are made in energy-absorbing processes in large stars, and their abundance in the universe (and on Earth) generally decreases with their atomic number. The abundance of the chemical elements on Earth varies from air to crust to ocean, and in various types of life. The abundance of elements in Earth's crust differs from that in the Solar system (as seen in the Sun and heavy planets like Jupiter) mainly
User-defined function where most other intrinsic functions are allowed. This also includes SELECT statements, where the function can be used against data stored in tables in the database. Conceptually, the function is evaluated once per row in such usage. For example, assume a table named ELEMENTS, with a row for each known chemical element. The table has a column named BoilingPoint for the boiling point of that element, in Celsius. The query would retrieve the name and the boiling point from each row. It invokes the CtoF user-defined function as declared above in order to convert the value in the column to