Tungsten General Electric's attempt to patent it, overturning granted in 1913 to William D. Coolidge. Tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with symbol W and atomic number 74. The name "tungsten" comes from the former Swedish name for the tungstate mineral "scheelite", "tung sten" or "heavy stone". Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively combined with other elements in chemical compounds rather than alone. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolated as a metal in 1783. Its important ores include wolframite and scheelite. The free element is remarkable for its
Transition metal prevent d–d bonding, which again tends to differentiate them from the accepted transition metals. Mercury has a melting point of and is a liquid at room temperature. Transition metal In chemistry, the term transition metal (or transition element) has three possible meanings: English chemist Charles Bury (1890–1968) first used the word "transition" in this context in 1921, when he referred to a "transition series of elements" during the change of an inner layer of electrons (for example n=3 in the 4th row of the periodic table) from a stable group of 8 to one of 18, or from 18 to