Tungsten

This metal is variously called tungsten or wolfram. The name wolfram is said to come from its appearance in 17th century tin mines in Germany, where miners noticed that certain ores disturbed their extraction of tin. The miners gave these annoying ores the name wolfram, which means 'wolf froth', because "they tear away the tin and devour it like a wolf devours a sheep" (International Tungsten Industry Association). The metal got its more common name tungsten, which is Swedish for ‘heavy stone’, in 1781 from the Swedish chemist and mineralogist who discovered and described an unusually heavy mineral. As you'll see when you try to lift up this sample, it is incredibly dense! It is used in the production of very hard metals like tungsten carbide and very hard alloys like tungsten steels.