All the definitions of metal are rather scientific. But both people who lived before the scientific discoveries and people who are unaware of the scientific definitions know what metal is. So how can it be defined (without a periodic table)?
In general, a metal is something that can be hammered out, can be stretched into a wire, is shiny, gets hot easily, and can pass electricity through it.
In other words, it’s malleable, ductile, reflective, and a conductor of heat and electricity.
http://www.anus.com/hsc/hcl/mfaq.html
Summary: This FAQ explores the development of heavy metal as a musical movement through theory and ideology, the primary influences on its growth, which seeks to overcome the negative through an existential nihilism that leads to self motivated philosophies, a transformation rooted in the self-dependent mythos of the culture and its association with occultist post-moral behavioral structures. Metal as a pattern of thought is a rebellion within postmodern ideology from structured cyclicism to structuralist dynamicism, effectively extending the principles of modernism to a post-relativity universe through a focus on transcendental kineticism, individual participation in postmoral experience, and chaotic mass destruction; it could be called an information systems theory approach. Similarly the revolution in music theory from metal is the extension of harmony from cyclic theatricism (wagnerianism) into melody for artistic, pure, complex experimentation. Subcultural genres such as metal are one of the few ways postmodern and existential thought enter mainstream life, as a meta-theory to politics and sociology.
sigh Some people…
Astro, you have reaffirmed my faith in the overweaning uselessness of the Internet. Thank you. 
Oh for Gods Sake!
Here…!
http://mst-online.nsu.edu/mstonline/metals/Metals.htm
NATURE OF METALS
Metals have been useful in humanity through the ages because they are “strong” when subjected to the external forces encountered under service conditions, yet they become “soft” enough to yield to a machine cutting tool or to a compressive shaping force. Above a certain temperature, they melt and become liquids capable of being shaped by casting. Only in recent times have we realized that the properties of all types of solid materials, including metals, arise from their atomic architecture, that is, from the manner in which their atoms arrange themselves into a crystalline order, from the number and types of imperfections found in this structure, and from the bonding forces that keep the collection or structure of atoms bound or joined together.
The “softness” quality of metals can be explained by an understanding of the atomic structure and metallic bond of the metal atoms to form a crystalline structure. We recall that the electrons in the metallic bond are free to move about their positive ions in an electron cloud or gas, which acts to glue or bond the ions together. This free movement, within limits, also allows for the movement of the atoms under the influence of an external load. This slight movement, visible only under the most powerful microscopes, is called elastic deformation or elastic strain. Once the external force, such as a bending force, is removed, the internal electrical forces that cause the atoms to move will decrease, allowing the atoms to return to their normal position; they leave no sign of ever being moved. If you bend a piece of spring steel such as a machinist’s rule or vegetable knife, it will return to its original shape, thus experiencing elastic deformation.
If you were not careful and applied too much external force by excessively bending the rule or knife, the atoms might move too far from their original positions to be able to move back again when you released the external force. Consequently, the rule or knife would be permanently bent and no longer fit for use. This permanent deformation is known as plastic flow, plastic slip, plastic deformation, or permanent set. When automakers stamp out a metal car body from low carbon steel in a huge die press, they use this softness quality of metals. The term cold working (defined later) is applied to this stamping operation and many other metalworking processes that produce plastic deformation in a metal. Cold-working operations include rolling, heading, spinning, peening, bending, pressing, extruding, drawing, and others.
The microstructure of metals can be modified in a number of ways. By now we know that this last statement can be interpreted to mean that, through advances in metals technology, we can affect the atomic structure of metals in a precise, controlled manner in the design of metal alloys with the desired properties. In this module we classify, for leaning purposes, the basic methods of changing a metal’s properties into the following categories: (1) work or strain hardening, (2) thermal processing under equilibrium conditions (solid solution hardening), (3) thermal processing under near equilibrium conditions (annealing and grain refinement), and (4) thermal processing under non equilibrium conditions. Of the four categories, only the first does not involve primarily thermal processing. Prior to discussing thermal processing techniques, we need to understand the concepts involved in the internal structure of solids, as presented in Module 3, and have a working knowledge of phase and phase diagrams, covered in the present module.
Work hardening is a way to change a metal alloy’s structure to alter its properties by performing work (cold working) on the metal itself. Work is a form of energy. If we can find a way to deliver energy to these metal atoms, we can give them the energy necessary for the atoms to increase their movement and thus their ability to diffuse through the metal structure. An external, mechanical shaping force is a force that causes a metal to exceed its elastic deformation limit and deform plastically without fracturing. This force and the deformation produced are the means for transferring sufficient energy to the atoms to allow them to flow or move plastically. This movement of atoms, one row at a time along planes of close packed atoms, shifts the positions of the atoms in relation to each other. From our study of crystal structures, we know that the spacing between atoms is not only critical, but varies with the particular crystal structure. Fcc structures have the closest-packed atoms and the greatest number of closest-packed planes of atoms, which take less energy to allow for the slip of the atoms. As more and more slip takes place, more dislocations are produced. The greater the slip, the greater the dislocations and the more distortion of the lattice structure. The end result is that the deformed metal is stronger than the original undeformed metal and offers greater resistance to further deformation. Metal grains that are random in their orientation produce isotropy, the same properties in all directions.
In summary, through cold working we have (1) reduced the metal’s ductility, (2) reduced the effectiveness of the metal atoms to slip, (3) reduced movement of dislocations in the structure, (4) created distortion of the lattice structure, and (5) ended up with a stronger metal that requires a greater force or greater amount of energy to deform it further. At the same time, changes in other properties, such as electrical conductivity, have also occurred. This condition of noticeable increase in energy for further deformation or increase in the metal’s yield strength is known as work or strain hardening.
In reference to Astro; quoting Johnny Rotten: “BRAINTRASH! PUKEFACE! BLLEEAGHHH!!!” :wally
Thank you.
Sigh… no one can take much less understand a joke it seems. The tedious (and I thought hilarious, but opinions obviously differ) little summary of the hermeneutics of “metal” is taken directly from the faqs intro and I pasted it without quoting it properly.
“Summary-------------sociology.”
There…happy now Di’?
:rolleyes:
astro, don’t let them get you down. I thought your first answer was hilarious. I wish I could write like that…
Yer pal,
Satan
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
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4515 cigarettes not smoked, saving $564.48.
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Actually, i don’t think that the general public is really all that aware of what is and is not a metal. Here’s a list of elements:
calcium
iodine
lithium
mercury
nickel
oxygen
silicon
sodium
sulfur
tungston
Can you name the metals? Ask some average people which are metals and which aren’t. I think that many people will get several wrong.
This is strictly from memory, college Chem was a loong time ago.
From your list, Ryan, the metals are:
lithium
mercury
nickel
sodium (technically: has metallic properties only in its pure form,not stable or found in nature)
tungsten
Non-metals:
calcium
iodine
oxygen
silicon
sulfur
How’d I do?
Calcium is a metal, and silicon is amphoteric, but the rest of them look OK to me.
(It’s Matt - the linguistics major who still remembers all of the chemical elements by heart. Now I wonder: Where’s the chem major who can remember all of the major language families and their descendants? And can we swap that portion of our brains?)
There’s two common definitions of metal, the physical and the chemical. The physical definition is the one supplied by matt_mcl in the first reply. The chemical definition is that metals are substances which tend to give up electrons in bonds, rather than accept them or share them. It’s interesting to note that by the physical definition, gold and silver are the most metallic elements, but by the chemical one, it’s (I believe) cesium.
Then again, if you ask a cosmologist, a metal is any element heavier than helium, including carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.
For the benefit of the guy who asked a simple question, there’s an quirky but true answer to your question: Generally speaking, things that make a metalic sound when they’re struck are metals. And things that look metalic are usually metals. I know, I know, that’s so circular. But the fact is that it is, in a more or less formal way, a description of what metals are. On a lay level (you should excuse the expression) what really counts is our direct and personal observation of a material. All the chemo-biz language about sharing electrons is meaningless theory. Scientists may say they have all sorts of evidence for this type of analysis, but when someone asks what is a metal, he’s not asking about electrons. Metals are metalic. Sorry, but that’s really the way a lot of materials scientists talk about things, anyway. Ya can’t very well whack on something and get a real nice dinging sound if the the thing isn’t metal. And, as the Flying Karamazov Brothers say, “And it’s just…that…easy!”
We have Corelle plates and dishes, and they sound very metallic when I flick them with my finger. If I hold them at a vibrational node, they keep ringing for a while. They’re some kind of ceramic, not a metal at all (microwaveable even).
Jeez, Zenbeam, that must be what I meant by “generally.”
Yes. Yes. It’s all so clear now CC. “Metals are metalic” (sic)
matt_mcl and chronos will smack their heads after realizing how obtuse they have been with this meaningless “chemo-biz” drivel. Poor fools.
As well they should, since the OP wanted to know about metals - separate from any “scientific” explanation. sheesh.