All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 83, a post-transition metal
A heavy metal gentle enough to swallow in a stomach remedy, and one that grows rainbow-colored staircase crystals.
Period 6, group 15. The other post-transition metals are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Bismuth has 83 electrons, one for every proton, so the atom carries no charge. Below are the same 83 electrons written two ways.
1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 3d¹⁰ 4s² 4p⁶ 4d¹⁰ 4f¹⁴ 5s² 5p⁶ 5d¹⁰ 6s² 6p³
Short form: [Xe] 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6s² 6p³, where [Xe] stands for the 54 electrons xenon already has.
That list runs by shell. In the order the subshells fill it reads [Xe] 6s² 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6p³, because a subshell fills by its energy, not by its shell number.
The simple form counts electrons shell by shell. The orbital form says which subshell each one sits in: s holds 2, p holds 6, d holds 10 and f holds 14. Shell 4 here is 4s² 4p⁶ 4d¹⁰ 4f¹⁴, and 2 + 6 + 10 + 14 is 32.
Bismuth sits in period 6 and has 6 shells. The period number counts the shells.
The outer shell holds 5 electrons. Those are the ones bismuth can lose, gain or share, so they are the ones that decide what it bonds with. For a main-group element the group number gives that count: group 15 means 5.
A metal that gives up its valence electrons to form positive ions, though less readily than the metals to its left.
Rare, and mostly recovered as a byproduct of refining lead, copper and tungsten ores, above all in China.
Known since the 1400s but often confused with tin and lead, until Claude François Geoffroy showed in 1753 that it was a separate element. The name probably comes from the old German wismuth, perhaps from weisse Masse, white mass.
Stomach medicines such as bismuth subsalicylate, the pink remedy. It replaces toxic lead in solder, plumbing brass, fishing weights and shotgun pellets, and low-melting bismuth alloys trigger fire sprinklers and fuses. Bismuth oxychloride gives cosmetics a pearly shine.