It took many of the metals several minutes to begin to react. Once the reaction was initiated, several of these metals continued to react quite vigorously.
What was the most probable cause of this delayed reaction?

Activation Energy

Explanation:

The main cause of slowness to start a reaction is the value of it activation energy. When metals possess low activation energy, it takes them time to start a reaction. But once started, the reaction becomes vigorous.

Activation Energy: the minimum quantity of energy which the reacting species must possess in order to undergo a specified reaction.

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Answerd. may include all of these are many definitions of bases: the  brønsted-lowry definition of acids and bases says that bases are proton acceptors.the arrhenius definition of acids and bases says that bases increase [oh⁻] in solution (thereby producing oh⁻ ions)the lewis definition of acids and bases says that bases donate electron pairs.therefore, the sensible answer is that a base may include all of the described characteristics.