the.com/chromium
the metal that makes things shine and ate your laptop's RAM whole
means A hard, lustrous, silvery metallic element (symbol Cr) used to plate and polish metals into a bright, corrosion-resistant shine, and the name of Google's open-source browser project behind Chrome.
from From the Greek 'chroma,' meaning color, named in the early 19th century because the element's compounds blaze in vivid hues — emerald greens, sunset oranges, lemon yellows. The browser sense is a much younger borrowing: Google named its browser 'Chrome' (after the glossy UI elements coders call 'chrome'), and 'Chromium' became the open-source codebase beneath it — the raw metal, fittingly, that Chrome is plated from.
- name origin
- Greek 'chroma' for color, all its compounds are vivid
- rust shield
- stainless steel survives because chromium forms invisible armor
- two faces
- trace amounts essential, chromium-6 is a notorious carcinogen
- ruby glow
- chromium impurities turn dull corundum into red rubies
- hardest known
- pure chromium is the most scratch-resistant pure metal
stainless steel production — 300+ million tons annually use chromium for corrosion resistance in kitchenware, construction, and medical devices
google chrome browser — named after chromium metal; launched 2008 and became world's most-used browser by 2012
leather tanning industry — basic chromium sulfate used in ~80% of global leather production since early 1900s