At room temperature, a certain element is found to be a shiny, si...

Question

At room temperature, a certain element is found to be a shiny, silver-colored solid that is a poor conductor of electricity. When a sample of the element is hit with a hammer, it shatters. Is the element likely to be a metal, a nonmetal, or a semimetal?

Accepted Answer

Hi everyone. This problem reads an element at room temperature was found to have a metallic luster and brittle but a poor conductor of electricity and heat. Is it a semi metal a non metal or a metal. Okay. And the characteristics that we're basing this on is that it has a metallic luster and brittle but a poor conductor of electricity and heat. So let's go ahead and separate these into categories. So we have semi metal. Oops, we have semi metal, we have metal and nonmetal. Alright, so let's start off with semi metal. So semi metals can be a poor conductor of electricity and heat. So right here, poor conductor non metals can also be a poor conductor of electricity and heat but metals are good conductors. Okay, so the question asked tells us that it's a poor conductor of heat and electricity. So that means we could go ahead and eliminate metal as one of our choices. So now we're between semi metal or non metal, which one is it? So four non metals, non metals have no metallic luster. Okay, and in the problem we're told that it's found to have a metallic luster. So because non metals do not have a metallic luster that makes a non metal, not the correct answer. So semi metal is a poor conductor or it can be a poor conductor of electricity and heat, but semi metals are also brittle. Okay, and so we know that the element has a metallic luster. It is brittle but a poor conductor of heat and electricity. So we know this that the semi metal does have a metallic luster because it is a semi metal. So that makes our correct answer choice here. Semi metal. Alright, so the element is a semi metal and that is the end of this problem. I hope this was helpful and this should say metallic luster, not metal luster. So, metallic luster. Alright, that's it for this problem.

Watch next