Period 3 element density and for its ability to resist corrosion due to the phenomenon of passivation. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. The most useful compounds of aluminium, at least on a weight basis, are the oxides and sulfates. "Silicon" (symbol Si) is a tetravalent metalloid. It is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table. Controversy about silicon's character dates to
SI base unit units are written in lowercase, except the symbols of those named after a person, which are written with an initial capital letter. For example, the "metre" (US English: "meter") has the symbol m, but the "kelvin" has symbol K, because it is named after Lord Kelvin and the "ampere" with symbol A is named after André-Marie Ampère. Several other units, such as the litre (US English: "liter"), are formally not part of the SI, but are accepted for use with SI. New definitions of the base units were approved on 16 November 2018, to take effect 20 May 2019. The