Calcium

 Calcium: It’s Not Just Good for Your Bones! Hi! My name is flyfreak_247! As you may know, calcium is good for strong bones and teeth. Yes, this is true. But, calcium has many other uses and an amazing history. So, by reading this wiki, you may find that calcium is more interesting than the milk you pour in you cereal!

The calcium that we have on Earth today was created dating back to approximately 5 billion years ago in the heart of a giant red star that exploded! Many cultures and civilizations used calcium without knowing what it was for thousands of years before it was actually “discovered”. In 1807 [|Sir Humphrey Davy], an English chemist isolated pure calcium. As usual the Romans get the credit for the discovery of 'calyx' - what the Romans called it-, but little did many people know how truly popular it was in several other cultures. Many examples are, the Greeks, who used calcium oxide to construct the Parthenon //(as seen below)// Also, the Egyptians used calcium oxide as well to make the great pyramids of Giza.

About 5 billion years ago, the calcium that lay beneath the Earth’s surface, rose to the crust and now is about 3.5% of the Crust. Calcium can be found in fluoride, limestone- (that is actually calcium oxide), and gypsum, which is used for making chalk and plaster. Many people do not know this, but calcium is used to help set off the explosions in fireworks. It also keeps the particles in chalk and plaster sticking together. Also, Calcium Oxide was used in ‘Limelight’, which was used to create very bright microscopic images. Limelight was a type of photography which used calcium oxide for a very clear, bright effect to the image. It became very popular because people enjoyed its clarity. Hence the saying "Being in the limelight!" As most of the entire Earth’s population will probably already know about calcium is that it is very good for your bones, and this is true. It makes it so that you bones keep together and don’t fall apart. Calcium phosphate is what keeps bones rigid and able to support your body weight. And yes, it is also good to keep strong teeth. Calcium Carbonate -also called aragonite- is the layer of enamel coating on your teeth that protects them from breaking.

Calcium is a very reactive element because it does not have complete electron shells, so it can make several different substances. When calcium and oxygen are fused, it makes Calcium oxide, which is lime- a very popular material used in construction everywhere. When calcium and hydrogen are exposed to each other, it acts very violently and makes Calcium hydroxide, which is quicklime. When [|calcium] is pure and not exposed to any other element, it is actually a hard, dense, silvery metal.

The atomic number of calcium is 20, meaning it has 20 protons, then, its atomic mass is 40, which means, there are 20 protons and 20 neutrons in the nucleus, then 20 electrons circling about the nucleus. Since there are 20 electrons about the nucleus, that leaves 2 electrons on the outer ring of the atom, meaning it "wants" to get rid of 2 electrons to be stable, or take 16. But, since it has the same amount of protons, neutrons and electrons, it has no charge. To find out all this information about calcium, it involved serious research and organization. so, to organize all my information, I made a web.

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