• Question: why is francium so reactive?

    Asked by kaboomi to Daren on 27 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Daren Fearon

      Daren Fearon answered on 27 Jun 2014:

      Francium isn’t particularly reactive, it is more unstable. It is impossible to get a large sample of it as it rapidly decays to form more stable atoms like astatine and radium.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 27 Jun 2014:

      Are you thinking of it reacting with water? As Daren said, it’s really unstable so wouldn’t hang around for long enough. The alkali metals get more reactive as you go down the group in the periodic table because they get bigger and find it easier to loose their outer electron. If caesium reacts like this in water http://youtu.be/sS3cIK9jlB8?t=1m1s, imagine how big a bang francium would make!

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