Rubidium - expensive and not very useful

Rubidium is a reactive metal with few uses, named 'deepest red' due to its beautiful red spectral lines, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 72 of Elemental.

Rubidium is named after the Latin word rubidius, meaning 'deepest red.'

It is a group one metal, which makes it soft, highly reactive with water and with a low melting point.

Rubidium helped win a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for the discoverers of Bose-Einstein condensates, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 72 of Elemental.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details