Why Are Metals Shiny?
We can all appreciate pretty shiny things, but what makes them shiny? We're conducting a survey of our viewers! If you have time, please give us feedback: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SciShowSur...
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Nothing grabs your eye quite like SHINY. And when it comes to shine, nothing beats a good metallic sheen. From mirrors to jewelry, metals are prized for their ability to glitter like, well, gold. Their shininess is basically a built-in property, and there’s a good reason why: It’s a quirk of the weird way their electrons behave. In a metal atom, the outermost electrons are only weakly attached to the nucleus. When a bunch of metal atoms come together in a chunk, these outer electrons wiggle free, creating what scientists usually think of as a negatively-charged “sea of electrons” flowing around a network of positively-charged ions. This moving sea is a big part of what makes metals … metal. For example, you can hammer them into different sh...
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Nothing grabs your eye quite like SHINY. And when it comes to shine, nothing beats a good metallic sheen. From mirrors to jewelry, metals are prized for their ability to glitter like, well, gold. Their shininess is basically a built-in property, and there’s a good reason why: It’s a quirk of the weird way their electrons behave. In a metal atom, the outermost electrons are only weakly attached to the nucleus. When a bunch of metal atoms come together in a chunk, these outer electrons wiggle free, creating what scientists usually think of as a negatively-charged “sea of electrons” flowing around a network of positively-charged ions. This moving sea is a big part of what makes metals … metal. For example, you can hammer them into different sh...
