Imagine you are given a mystery element. it is, however, a discovered and known element. you may perform a maximum of two observations or tests to determine its identity. time and money is critical, so you need to prioritize your tests. if you can get by with a single test, you get 100 super-geek points from your research lab team. pick your two tests, number them as #1 and #2, and justify why you think these two will certainly be enough (and why the first might well be enough all by itself.) the available tests are classification into metal, non-metal, or metalloid, count of valence electrons, count of electron shells, atomic radius (error range: +/- 1 pm), electronegativity (error range: +/- 0.1), first ionization energy (error range: +/- 10 kj/mole), melting point (error range: +/- 10 c), and boiling point (error range: +/- 20 c).

#1 atomic radius.

Explanation:

Hello,

In this case, since time and money are critical and additional points are given if one test is used, the best one would be the determination of the atomic radius including the error range of +/-1 pm. This lies on the fact that the atomic radius varies group-by-group by no less than 5 pm per element. For instance, nitrogen's atomic radius is about 56 pm and oxygen's one 48 pm (difference is more than 5pm), therefore, even with the associated error, such technique will be accurate in the light of the identification of the mysterious element with just one test.

Best regards.

alkaline metals are lithium, sodium, rubidium, potassium, cesium and francium.

alkali metals have electronegativity from 0.7 to 1, lowest in periodic table of elements, which means that alkali metals (i group in periodic table) has positive oxidation number in compounds.

electronegativity is a chemical property that describes the tendency of an atom to attract a shared pair of electrons towards itself.

alkaline metals (far left in main group) have lowest ionizations energy and easy remove valence electrons,

for example, potassium is the alkali metal and has a single valence electron in the outer electron shell.

electron configuration of potassium is: ₁₉k 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s¹.

they can not exist alone in nature, because they are very reactive.