Lithium Lithium Lithium (from ) is a chemical element with symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the lightest metal and the lightest solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly reactive and flammable, and is stored in mineral oil. When cut, it exhibits a metallic luster, but moist air corrodes it quickly to a dull silvery gray, then black tarnish. It never occurs freely in nature, but only in (usually ionic) compounds, such as pegmatitic minerals which were once the main source of lithium. Due to its solubility
Greatest and least elements they are called the absolute extrema. The least and greatest element of the whole partially ordered set plays a special role and is also called bottom and top, or zero (0) and unit (1), or ⊥ and ⊤, respectively. If both exists, the poset is called a bounded poset. The notation of 0 and 1 is used preferably when the poset is even a complemented lattice, and when no confusion is likely, i.e. when one is not talking about partial orders of numbers that already contain elements 0 and 1 different from bottom and top. The existence of least and