Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A soft silvery-white metallic element of the alkali group that ignites spontaneously in air and reacts violently with water, used in photocells and as a getter in the manufacture of vacuum tubes. Atomic number 37; atomic weight 85.47; melting point 39.30°C; boiling point 688°C; specific gravity (solid) 1.532; valence 1, 2, 3, 4. cross-reference: Periodic Table.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Chemical symbol, Rb; atomic weight, 85.25. A metal belonging to the group of elements which includes lithium, sodium, potassium, and cæsium: so named from the reddish tint of its salts.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Chem.) A rare metallic element of the alkali metal series, atomic number 37. It occurs quite widely, but in small quantities, and always combined. It is isolated as a soft yellowish white metal, analogous to potassium in most of its properties. Symbol Rb. Atomic weight, 85.48.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
metallic chemical element (symbol Rb) with anatomic number of 37.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a soft silvery metallic element of the alkali metal group; burns in air and reacts violently in water; occurs in carnallite and lepidolite and pollucite
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Following the very spectacular demonstrations of BEC in rubidium and sodium by the JILA and MIT groups, the field has developed explosively and over 20 groups are now conducting BEC experiments.
The 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics - Information for the Public 2001
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This suggestion has been of great service in spectrum analysis, and as applied by Bunsen, Kirchoff, and others, has led to the discovery of several new elements, such as rubidium and thallium, as well as increasing our knowledge of the heavenly bodies.
Heroes of the Telegraph John Munro 1889
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The scientific basis of this method is described in detail in Brent Dalrymple’s book The Age of the Earth, and depends upon the known and very long half-lives by which three radioactive chemical elements steadily decay and transform into different, stable elements: uranium slowly becomes lead, potassium slowly becomes argon, and the more exotic strontium becomes the rare element called rubidium.
The Language of God Francis S. Collins 2006
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The scientific basis of this method is described in detail in Brent Dalrymple’s book The Age of the Earth, and depends upon the known and very long half-lives by which three radioactive chemical elements steadily decay and transform into different, stable elements: uranium slowly becomes lead, potassium slowly becomes argon, and the more exotic strontium becomes the rare element called rubidium.
The Language of God Francis S. Collins 2006
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That's because the obsidian from each volcano has a unique chemical signature based on the amount of elements such as rubidium, zirconium and strontium in the glass.
Spero News 2009
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That's because the obsidian from each volcano has a unique chemical signature based on the amount of elements such as rubidium, zirconium and strontium in the glass.
Spero News 2009
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That's because the obsidian from each volcano has a unique chemical signature based on the amount of elements such as rubidium, zirconium and strontium in the glass.
Signs of the Times 2009
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(intercalated) with atoms of an alkali such as rubidium or potassium it became a superconductor with a Tc of 18 kelvin (-255 degrees Celsius) or below, which is a relatively high temperature for superconductors.
PhysOrg.com - latest science and technology news stories 2010
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In a paper* to be published in Physical Review A, the JQI team identifies conditions under which a cloud of ultracold atoms of two species (such as rubidium and sodium, or two slightly different forms of rubidium) can spontaneously condense into a state in which there is crystalline structure in the relative positions of atoms, e.g. a chain in which the two different types of atoms alternate regularly, but in which the entire cloud exhibits the frictionless, superfluid properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).
Nano Tech Wire 2009
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Per Wikipedia: Mercury is a heavy, silvery d-block metal [that] is one of six elements that are liquid at or near room temperature and pressure, the others being caesium, francium, gallium, bromine, and rubidium.
oroboros commented on the word rubidium
Rb
December 2, 2007