It happens all over the periodic table. The chemical symbol for lead ... high school cracked up every time she referred to the symbol for tungsten—that big, fat, unaccountable W.

The periodic table, also called the periodic table ... internationally and are sometimes unexpected. For example, the symbol for tungsten is "W" because another name for that element is wolfram.

Counterintuitively, the trio of scientists proposes sending more junk into space, but a special kind of junk—an 18-mile-thick cloud of tungsten dust. The density of space junk peaks around 620 ...