Chemical Element: gallium
(Modern Latin: chemical element; Gallia, the Latin name for the area that became France after the fall of the Roman Empire; metal)
Chemical-Element Information
Symbol: GaAtomic number: 31
Year discovered: 1875
Discovered by: Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1838-1912), a French chemist.
- Gallium was an element whose existence was predicted by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeléyev in 1871 when he said that the then unknown element gallium should resemble aluminum in its properties.
- He therefore suggested the name eka-aluminium (symbol Ea).
- His predictions for the properties of gallium are remarkably close to reality.
- Gallium was discovered spectroscopically by de Boisbaudran when he found a zinc ore that displayed hitherto unknown spectral lines.
Name in other languages:
French: gallium
German: Gallium
Italian: gallio
Spanish: galio
Information about other elements may be seen at this Chemical Elements List.
A special unit about words that include chemo-, chem- may be seen here.