Silicon Silicon Silicon is a chemical element with symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard and brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre; and it is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic table: carbon is above it; and germanium, tin, and lead are below it. It is relatively unreactive. Because of its large chemical affinity for oxygen, it was not until 1823 that Jöns Jakob Berzelius was first able to prepare it and characterize it in pure form. Its melting and boiling points of 1414 °C and 3265
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