What exactly is barium?
Barium is one of the earth’s 92 chemical elements and the best way to study the nature of an element is to begin with its basic atom. Then we locate and consider its related family of elements on the Periodic Table. We now have the key information that makes the behavior of barium and the compounds it forms seem logical. The element barium has the atomic number 56 because its basic atom is the only atom with 56 protons in its nucleus. These positive particles are balanced with a normal quota of negative electrons that orbit around the nucleus in five complete shells plus a partial outer shell of two electrons. The atomic weight of our element is 137.34. On the Periodic Table of chemical elements, barium is charted in a family of grey metals called the “alkaline earths.” This odd family name arose because all the metallic brethren were first isolated from earthy minerals. Beryllium, magnesium and strontium were isolated in the 1700s. Barium and calcium were found in 1808 and the family,
