Look again at the "long form" of the Periodic Table:
 |
| click to enlarge |
I've already
blogged through three layers of the so-called main group elements, which are the two bluish colored blocks of elements bookending the reddish elements "inside." With reference to the very top left, calcium has the coordinates 4 down and 2 across. To get to the next element to the right, we have to jump the gap across the red
rare earth metals and the underlying (and notorious) actinides to the first pink element, scandium.
Scandium is the first of the so-called transition metals, named from the Latin,
transire = to go across or to cross over. The metaphor is that we're "crossing over" on our way back to the right-hand block of main group elements. Destination: krypton.
That's about all I want to say about scandium. But guess where it was discovered? Yep. And by somebody named Lars even.
Link
