First of all, lead's symbol is Pb. It's not L. Or Le. Or Ld. I promise. It's named after the Latin *shiver* word "plumbum." The Romans died from lead poisoning because they had lead pipes. What do plumbers do? Good, now you should have no trouble remembering the correct symbol for lead. Tell your friends.
The stuff that makes a pencil write is not lead. It's graphite, which is a form of carbon. Go read about carbon if you care that much.
Lead is the most stable element. All of the naturally occurring radioactive elements (the heavy ones, of course. I'm not talking about tritium.) decay into lead. Somehow 82, lead's atomic number, is some kind of special atom code. (Oooooh, scary...) Let me see if I can remember Pb's electron configuration... [Xe]4f145d106s2p2.
X-rays can't pass through lead. (And lots of other heavy metals, but lead is one of the few heavy metals that doesn't emit radiation or poison tissues it comes in contact with. You actually have to get it into your system for it to hurt you.) This is why you wear a lead vest when you get x-rays, assuming, of course, you're getting some other part of your body x-rayed.
Alchemists in the middle ages used to attempt to turn lead into gold. This is theoretically possible--it's even understandingly plausible, since lead only has three more protons and electrons and a handful of neutrons (depending on the isotopes) more than gold.
June 15, 1999