16. Which of the following atoms has the greatest polarizability?
(A)manganese
(B)iron
(C)nitrogen
(D)oxygen
(E)tellurfium

Note from Table 10.2 that the freezing point rises going down the group. The principal cause for this trend is that as the atomic number increases, the number of electrons increases, and there is an increased chance of the occurrence of momentary dipole interactions. We describe this phenomenon using the term polarizability, which indicates the ease with which the electron “cloud” of an atom can be distorted to give a dipolar charge distribution. Thus we say that large atoms with many electrons exhibit a higher polarizability than small atoms. This means that the importance of London dispersion forces in- creases greatly as the size of the atom increases.

from zumdahl