It is possible to define metallic character as we do in this book and base it on the reactivity of the element and the ease with which it loses electrons. Alternatively, one could measure how well electricity is conducted by each of the elements to determine how 'metallic' the elements are. On the basis of conductivity, there is not much of a trend in the periodic table: Silver is the most conductive metal, and manganese the least. Look up the first ionization energies of silver and manganese; which of these two elements would you call more metallic based on the way we define it in this book?

Video transcript

Hey everyone in this example, we need to choose the more metallic element based on the first ionization energy. So we're given the elements golden cadmium and we want to recall that the lower the ionization energy value will correspond to a greater metallic character of our atom. So we want to look up the ionization energy for gold And we would see that it's equal to a value of 890 Electro volts. Now, on the other hand, when we look up the ionization energy of cadmium, we would see that it's equal to a value of 868 electro volts. So because we can agree that cadmium ionization energy is less than the ionization energy of gold's, we would say that therefore cadmium is more metallic because it has greater metallic character. And so this would be our final answer to complete this example. I hope that everything I explained was clear. If you have any questions, leave them down below and I will see everyone in the next practice video.