[fishguts]

Hi,

On a assignment I have been asked why the activity of cesium has not been tested for the activity series of metals. I am not to sure about this but I believe that it has not been tested because cesium is too reactive to test. Is this correct or is there another reasons why cesium has not been tested? Thanks for any help

[ARGOS++]

Dear Fishguts;

You are right! 
 
You may check under the headline: “Precaution” on:   "Caesium”.


Good Luck!
                    ARGOS⁺⁺

[Arkcon]

Now wait a minute, just because it's the most reactive of all the alkali metals, doesn't mean it can never be tested in a laboratory with suitable engineering protocols for safety, right?  I wouldn't want to be the guy who has to determine it's activity by dropping some in a beaker of water on a benchtop, but that could be done in a controlled fashion in a  bomb calorimeter, for example, right?

I find it hard to believe in a world with nanoexplosives, and where the bonding energy of two or three atoms of synthesized elements with half-lives of nanoseconds, plain old cesium is beyond our technological ability.

[ARGOS++]

Dear Arkcon;

Nobody told it would be impossible!
But it seems Nobody published a real value for it, - till yet!
Maybe you’re the First?

Good Luck!
                    ARGOS⁺⁺

[AWK]

Hi,

On a assignment I have been asked why the activity of cesium has not been tested for the activity series of metals. I am not to sure about this but I believe that it has not been tested because cesium is too reactive to test. Is this correct or is there another reasons why cesium has not been tested? Thanks for any help

Use a better data source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_standard_electrode_potentials

[Arkcon]

Dear Arkcon;

Nobody told it would be impossible!
But it seems Nobody published a real value for it, - till yet!
Maybe you’re the First?

Good Luck!
                    ARGOS⁺⁺

I tended, back in the day, to tell people this plan of mine.  You see, people have probably seen the demonstration -- you melt sodium metal, and immerse the steel ladle full of liquid sodium, into a beaker of chlorine gas, and very energetically get NaCl.  A quick look at the table of electronegativities shows that the two most reactive elements would be cesium and fluorine ... I used to warn people, if they're even in a lab where cesium and fluorine and I are in the same place -- run, because, someday, come hell or high water, I will mix 'em to see what happens.  I don't make that joke anymore because:

1) They're unlikely to be stored in close enough proximity, and I'm not likely to have access to both in an industrial setting
2) I don't really have the engineering skills to remotely mix them a safe distance away, I can see that by watching Mythbusters and Brainiac on TV, because they do engineer the safe mixing of reactive elements
3) People just point to those collections for sale on the internet of sealed tubes of elements, I can easily buy an ampule of cesium and fluorine, and I've simply chickened out.

I would have asked the Brainiac folks to do it, but then I found out they faked their reactive metals experiment, and I don't think the show is in production anymore, anyway.