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Revamping The Periodic Table?
vinohradska writes "There is an interesting article on the periodic table over at Slate: 'Oxford ecologist Philip Stewart has designed a new periodic table of the elements, and it's a hit. American schools are placing orders daily for Stewart's table, and the Royal Society of Chemists recently sent a copy to every British secondary school. Stewart's is the only remake to achieve widespread adoption since Dmitri Mendeleev invented the original periodic table in a fit of brilliance in 1869.' "
Since the painfully brief article buries the most relevant piece of this story 5 pages into a linked slideshow: An image of the chart in question.
::curmudgeony voice:: Dunno... certainly looks prettier, but at quick glance I can gather a lot more information from an "old school" chart.
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I trust this won't affect The Elements Song by Tom Lehrer. If you've never heard the song, or haven't listened to it since your high school Chemistry teacher played it for you in class, check out the horribly clever Flash animation of the song at privatehand.com.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I forgot to mention that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Galaxy is the wikipedia article.
There's a good collection of periodic tables here. Also note that the periodic table referred to in the article is similar to one produced by Thoedor Benfey.
Nerd 1: Come on, Mr. Simpson, you'll never pass this course if you don't know the periodic table.
Homer: Ehh, I'll write it on my hand.
Nerd 1: Ho! Including all known lanthanides and actinides? Ha, ha! Good luck.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Chem icalGalaxy_Stewart_2004.jpg If you look at the table, you will see its is actually really nice, and easy to follow and work out groupings.
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Did you see the illustration on page 6? I think it's obvious that the size of the text could be increased and the amount of blackspace decreased. It would not be hard to draw it yourself in a more readable way. It's not as though that galaxy picture is the only possible way to represent this new table.
Esoteric reference.
The best resource out there is probably http://www.webelements.com/. Everything from simple tables to in depth data.
In principle, the chart could spiral out forever. In practice, it can't because large nuclei (reflected by large atomic numbers) tear themselves apart with Coulombic (electrical) forces. The question marks are elements that either haven't yet been made (e.g., #113) or haven't yet been named (e.g., #118 -- although there's some controversy about whether it has been made)
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Here: New Periodic Table
It's less cluttered and easier to read than the "Galaxy" version.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
It's pissing awful. The current one is nice and easy. Groups go down, periods go across.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
No, modern charts have all the elements that can exist on them, the 'gaps' are there because lighter elements only have a few valence electrons. For example, hydrogen and helium are very far apart on the table, but actualy they only differ by one electron. And since Hydrogen has one extra electron, it is grouped with lithium, sodium, potasium, etc. Helium has 'all' it's electrons so it gets grouped with neon, xenon, argon, etc.
There's still spaces to to add onto at the end for elements like Unununium which include larger and larger elements. But there are no 'gaps'.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
After writing my above comment I decided to do a quick search on super atoms to see what I could find. Here's a short list for those interested:
- Super Atoms
- Super Atoms from Bose-Einstein Condensation
Enjoy!The strange thing is that high school chemistry books that I've taught from treat Mendeleev as a sort of Socrates/demigod figure, yet make no mention of Moseley's contributions, which really advanced chemistry. We wouldn't know anything about the inner workings of the atom if we didn't know and understand atomic numbers.
As for this new poster... it would be something I'd put up on the wall of my classroom to attract attention and give students a new way of looking at the elements, but for any serious work, we'd still have to use the standard periodic table. There's nothing wrong with looking at the elements in a new way, but that doesn't mean it will be useful beyond generating interest in science.
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According to Phillip Stewarts website, this chart isn't meant to replace the current chart.
From the website :
Much about the chemistry of the elements can be obtained from:
8 501080/qid=1121871924/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-082468 3-5368037?v=glance&s=books
0 633654/qid=1121872078/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0824 683-5368037?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Essential Trends in Inorganic Chemistry by D.M.P. Mingos, D. M. P. Mingos
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019
and
Chemistry of the Elements by A. Earnshaw, Norman Greenwood
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/075
Rote memorization is quite different from actual learning.
I think it's sad that while American schools have to order and pay for these things out of their already over stretched budgets they have gone out to every Secondary School in Britain.
Hydrogen and Helium differ also by one proton and two neutrons.
Atomic H: 1 P, 1 e
Atomic He: 2 P, 2 N, 2 e
The reason they are grouped as they are (vertical groupings are really all that matters) is because, in their atomic state, those species have very similar physical properties.
That being said, oxidized Li is *somewhat* similar to He (atomic radius, further reactivity, etc).
IAAC (Chemist)
Now he's going to have to build a new table of elements
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The S, P, D and F groupings are, in fact, very important. The original periodic table was built upon it based on the spectra of the atoms they found. Spectroscopy is still one of the only ways to learn anything on the atomic level.
A little known, and mainly forgotten fact is that the S, P, D and F designations mean something: Back in the early days of spectroscopy, chemists looking at the emissions given off by the different elements took to classifying them in groups, which they labeled "Sharp", "Principle", "Diffuse" and "Fundamental".
We now understand about the origins of the different banding patterns, and such - but those traditional names have stuck around, and so has the classical shape of the periodic table.
What you see on the "new" periodic table completely eliminates the valuable information that you get from the common underlying structures of the atoms that give rise to the spectra, and hence give rise to the groupings on the "old" periodic table.
And what the heck is the point of putting Hydrogen on top of Carbon? Because they both have half filled orbitalls?? So strange.
The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Well, when dealing with water chemistry, clearly hydogen hydroxide is a special case amoung the alkalines! It still makes more sense to have hydrogen over lithium than over florine, however. I wonder how different the properties of hydrogen and lithium are in conditions where metallic hydrogen is stable.
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