Tungsten

Tungsten melts at 3422 °C and has the lowest vapour pressure of any metal, which is precisely the specification for an incandescent filament: William Coolidge worked out how to draw ductile tungsten wire at General Electric in 1909, and the coiled-coil tungsten filament lit the twentieth century until LEDs displaced it. Tungsten carbide, harder than almost anything but diamond, does the other half of the work — every masonry drill bit, milling insert and mining tooth. At 19.3 g/cm³ tungsten is as dense as gold and far cheaper, making it the standard material for radiation shielding, aircraft balance weights, and darts. Its symbol W comes from wolfram, the German name; the Swedish tung sten simply means heavy stone.