From carrying current on a computer's circuit boards to holding up skyscrapers, metal has countless uses, thanks to its special characteristics: It's hard and strong, yet it's bendable. It can be welded to other pieces of metal and rolled flat or hammered into shape. It conducts heat and electricity. It has a lustrous surface.
At the atomic heart of metal is a crystalline structure—tightly packed atoms arranged in orderly rows.
This feature explores this heart and reveals what it is that gives metal its special characteristics and how metal behaves under the stress of heat and outside forces.
Keywords: metals, bonding, electron cloud
