3 ms·
But that's like anything. Why is the symbol for hydrogen "H"? Well that's obvious. But then iron is "Fe", gold "Au" and lead "Pb", because those were named afte
by jhbadger 4y ago
But that's like anything. Why is the symbol for hydrogen "H"? Well that's obvious. But then iron is "Fe", gold "Au" and lead "Pb", because those were named after the Latin for those elements: ferrum, aurum, and plumbum, that happen to differ wildly from English.
- BWStearns 4y agoCertainly, but we've been doing things with elements for a while now. Aviation is relatively new. It's interesting how quickly naming and process cruft accumulates.
- albrewer 4y agoThe most confusing ones that people might run into regularly are for sodium (Na) and potassium (K) since the medical conditions for having too much / too little of them are named after the Latin names - (hyper/hypo)natremia and (hyper/hypo)kalemia.