Tin has been around since ancient times: no true person discovered it. The year and the place it was discovered are unknown. The meaning of tin comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "Tin-. The origin of the symbol Sn comes from the Latin word "Stannum- meaning "Tin-. Tin was common to the ancient people and was also named in the Old Testament. Many workers in that time thought that tin was too soft of a metal to have any effective purpose. They discovered that if they were to mix it with copper it would make the Alloy Bronze, of Bronze Age fame.
Tin is a silvery lustrous gray element that is available in many forms. The most common forms are bars, foil, granules, powder, shot, wire, and sticks. Mostly, tin is a silvery-white metal and somewhat ductile, and has a highly crystalline structure. Due to the breaking of the crystals in tin, a "tin cry" is heard when a bar is bent. Tin resists distilled, sea, and soft tap water, but attracted by strong acids, alkalis, and acid salts. When tin is heated in air, tin forms SnO2.
Evidence shows that people have been using tin for over 5,500 years. Tin is gathered by the mineral cassiterite SnO2 and is evoked by roasting cassiterite in with carbon. Tin makes up only about 0.001%of the earth's crust and is chiefly mined in Malaysia. .
There are two different forms of Tin: the first form of tin is called gray tin and is stable at temperatures below 13.2°C (55.76F). There are barely any uses for gray tin. When gray tin exceeds the temperature of 13.2°C it turns into its second form, which is white tin. White tin has many uses and is the primary form, but like gray tin if white tins temperature falls below 13.2°C it will turn into gray tin again. This change can be stopped if different substances are added to white tin. .
Tin will always resist corrosion and sometimes it serves as a protective armor for other metals. An example of this would be tin cans because tin cans are made from steel then to cover the steel tin is placed on the inside and outside of the can, so rusting will not occur.
