niobium

Soft, grey-white, somewhat ductile and malleable, metallic element, atomic number 41, relative atomic mass 92.906. It occurs in nature with tantalum, which it resembles in chemical properties. It is used in making stainless steel and other alloys for jet engines and rockets and for making superconductor magnets.

Niobium was discovered in 1801 by the English chemist Charles Hatchett (1765-1847), who named it columbium (symbol Cb), a name that is sometimes still used in metallurgy. In 1844 it was renamed after Niobe by the German chemist Heinrich Rose (1795-1864) because of its similarity to tantalum (Niobe is the daughter of Tantalus in Greek mythology).

In 1995, Australian physicists incorporated the world's largest niobium ingot (1.5 tonnes in weight and 3 m/9.8 ft long) into a gravity wave detector. Gravity waves are produced when matter accelerates, according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, but they have never been detected. Niobium is particularly suitable for this purpose, as it is the best superconducting element, absorbs less sound than any other pure metal, and rings with such a pure sound that it is possible to detect small changes in wave pattern.