Period 3 element phosphorus originates from oxidation of the white (but not red) phosphorus and should be called chemiluminescence. It is also the lightest element to easily produce stable exceptions to the octet rule. The vast majority of phosphorus compounds are consumed as fertilizers. Other applications include the role of organophosphorus compounds in detergents, pesticides and nerve agents, and matches. "Sulfur" (symbol S) is an abundant, multivalentnon-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow crystalline solid when at room temperature. Chemically, sulfur can react as either an oxidant or reducing agent.
Chemical element than the current estimated age of the universe, bismuth-209 has the longest known alpha decay half-life of any naturally occurring element. The very heaviest 24 elements (those beyond plutonium, element 94) undergo radioactive decay with short half-lives and cannot be produced as daughters of longer-lived elements, and thus they do not occur in nature at all. The properties of the chemical elements are often summarized using the periodic table, which powerfully and elegantly organizes the elements by increasing atomic number into rows ("periods") in which the columns ("groups") share recurring ("periodic") physical and chemical properties. The current standard table contains