Atomic Number: 31
Atomic Weight: 70
Element Group: Post-Transition Metals
Phase at Room Temperature: Solid
If you've ever wanted to hold or play with Mercury (80), you were probably stopped by your chemistry teacher, mom or anyone else who knew that Mercury was insidiously poisonous. Thankfully, I'm here to fulfil your desires to play with a liquid metal. Although I am a solid silvery metal at room temperature, (25 degrees C, 77 degrees F) I melt at 85 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that if you hold me in your hand, I will melt, making me one of - if not the only - liquid metal you can hold without boiling your hand away or poisoning yourself. Like water, I expand when I freeze, something that also excludes me from most of the Periodic Table.
Because I melt at a very low temperature, I can be used to play a wonderful prank on friends. Simply make a spoon out of me and give it to a guest to stir their tea. Their hot beverage with "dissolve" their utensil and probably deter them from ever drinking something at your house again. The pool of metal in the bottom of their drink can be recovered (I don't easily bond with molecules around me) and recast for another prank.
In 1871, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted that I existed and even deduced my would-be properties. Mendeleev was the creator of the modern Periodic Table, although other chemists and scientists had created others before him. The one thing different about Mendeleev is that he realized that some elements hadn't been discovered and that they would need a space on the Table. By creating columns of elements with similar attributes, he predicted the properties of the "holes" in the chart based on which column they lay in. I was one of those elements.
On a duller note, I am named after France, where is was first discovered. France's old name in Roman times was Gaul; therefore, Gallium.
In regards to Vial, I thank him and hope that he will find this short autobiography satisfactory and post in on the internet.
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