It has a melting point of 28°C (82°F), which means it will be liquid on a warm summer day, and revert to a solid later that night after the ambient temperature cools. Cæsium is just one of five elemental metals that are liquids at or near room temperature.

Its name comes from the Latin word for sky-blue because when burned, cæsium turns the flame a lovely blue colour.

Since the 1990s, the largest application of the element has been as caesium formate for drilling fluids, but it has a range of applications in the production of electricity, in electronics, and in chemistry. The radioactive isotope caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years and is used in medical applications, industrial gauges, and hydrology. Nonradioactive caesium compounds are only mildly toxic, but the pure metal’s tendency to react explosively with water means that caesium is considered a hazardous material, and the radioisotopes present a significant health and ecological hazard in the environment.

Caesium is also know for its use in atomic clocks and use the electromagnetic transitions in the hyperfine structure of caesium-133 atoms as a reference point. The first accurate caesium clock was built by Louis Essen in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK.

These clocks measure frequency with an error of 2 to 3 parts in 10¹⁴, which corresponding to an accuracy of 2 nanoseconds per day, or one second in 1.4 million years. The latest versions are more accurate than 1 part in 10¹⁵, about 1 second in 20 million years.  The Caesium standard is the primary standard for standards-compliant time and frequency measurements. Caesium clocks regulate the timing of cell phone networks and the Internet.

For more information visit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium

https://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2012/mar/23/1

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18/05/1980

An earthquake at 8:32:17 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, 1980, caused the entire weakened north face to slide away, creating the largest landslide ever recorded. This allowed the partly molten, high-pressure gas- and steam-rich rock in the volcano to suddenly explode northwards toward Spirit Lake in a hot mix of lava and pulverized older rock.

Approximately 57 people were killed directly.  Hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland, causing over a billion U.S. dollars in damage, thousands of animals were killed, and Mount St. Helens was left with a crater on its north side.

Lakes nearest to Mount St. Helens have been partly covered with felled trees for more than thirty years. This photograph was taken in 2012.

For more information visit:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_eruption_of_Mount_St._Helens

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Source: Compound Interest

1. 12-sided – its distinctive shape means it stands out by sight and by touch
2. Bimetallic – The outer ring is gold coloured (nickel-brass) and the inner ring is silver coloured (nickel-plated alloy)
3. Latent image – it has an image like a hologram that changes from a ‘£’ symbol to the number ‘1’ when the coin is seen from different angles
4. Micro-lettering – around the rim on the heads side of the coin tiny lettering reads: ONE POUND. On the tails side you can find the year the coin was produced
5. Milled edges – it has grooves on alternate sides
6. Hidden high security feature – an additional security feature is built into the coin to protect it from counterfeiting but details have not been revealed

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