"Tin" is an ancient name which is almost synonymous with anything made of shiny metal. The "Bronze age" would not have been possible without it, so it helped to get us where we are today in technology. Later, it was used in alchemy. The next chapter of tin .? . that will be its appearance in the modern alchemy of alternative energy.
Sometimes the Latin name "stanene" is used and its symbol Sn reflects that. Curiously, it's called the "next graphene" - referring to the many miracle uses of graphene, and its hexagonal geometry in planar layers. Like graphene, Sn can become superconductive, photoactive, catalytic, a topological insulator and semi-conductive. It is no accident that tin, atomic number 50, is in the same Periodic Table group - 14 - as carbon. You can imagine it as heavy-carbon or light-lead. Tin has more stable isotopes than any other element, and more unstable as well - one of which probably has the mass-energy of the Higgs boson, explaining its instability. In the past few years - tin has become a miracle material insofar as its activity as a photo-catalyst - such as ability to split water using only sunlight. http://ma.ecsdl.org/content/MA2016-01/41/2091.short?related-urls=yes&legid=e csmtgabs;MA2016-01/41/2091 and as a topological insulator http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-atomically-thin-tin-transfor m-electronics/ Prediction: tin will soon emerge in the context of LENR, and that could happen relatively quickly. Maybe by Independence Day? Next year, palladium and nickel could become "ancient history" . somewhat like the bronze age. You heard it first on vortex . :-)
