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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.' "
The writeup mentioned that the chart had been bought by several schools, but I'm willing to bet that most of them are just putting them on the wall because they're pretty and sort of educational. The tiny dots for each element are going to be a lot harder to read (and stick additional information in) than a regular boxy chart.
Frankly, I liked the 1950s chart after it better. There was a certain beauty in the layout of that chart. The new chart is pretty much just the elements spiraled across a picture of a galaxy.
I read the internet for the articles.
Stewart created his table in part because he remembered being deeply impressed, at the age of 12, by a similar one he saw at the science pavilion of the 1951 Festival of Britain. An impressionistic swirl in vivid colors created by the artist Edgar Longman, the table stood little hope of being adopted by classrooms, but it spurred Stewart to study science. He recalls being struck by nature's underlying order: "I realized that the atoms that make up a galaxy can be arranged in just the same form as the galaxy itself." There's a few points from page 5 of the slideshow that really hit home. 1) First, he basically ripped this idea off from a previous chart built in 1951, modernized, gave it a better "UI" and is now shipping it out to the masses. Sound familiar?
2) On a positive note, I believe that the visual upgrades to the chart (although, will color blind people have any issues getting the full content from the chart now?) will definitely help students remember and learn emelents easier. The visual separation should definitely increase the ability for students to remember how many different colors, how many elemnts per color per spiral, etc. 3) What I think is the most interesting point of all of this is the relation of the elements being able to be tied back together and done so in a shape that mirrors the overall shape of the galaxy. It's sort of like the movie "Pi" where we can see trends, shapes, circles and spirals all within our life and this would be just one more example.
Hagrin.com
I actually much prefer Stewart's reconstruction of the 50's art exhibit which led to his "galaxy of elements" thing:
1 22917/2122918/2122942/Longman.jpg/
http://img.slate.msn.com/media/1/123125/2093564/2
But above it all I prefer the current table by far.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Still and all, I will probably have it only as a demo tool. The standard chart is much easier to read. It also shows electron configurations more clearly than the spiral does.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Most people's preferences are to stay with the things that they already know, and what they're familiar with. (except in mating, but that's a whole 'nother issue).
... could this be a better form for someone who isn't already familiar with the periodic table that we've grown up with? Is it easier for children to understand?
I like the old chart because all of the detail is right there with the element -- I don't have to go and look at the chart along the right side of the page to get all of its details. But
Yes, the whole 'galaxy' thing is most likely to get children interested in science. They'd have probably worked a dinosaur in there, too, if someone hadn't pointed out that it'd then be sexist, and appeal to boys more than girls, but if it gets the kids interested, and maybe they then move to what we think of as the 'normal' periodic table (being that it's much more dense with its information), it doesn't really hurt anyone.
It just makes it so that the kids won't get jokes like the Periodic Table of Condiments quite as quickly. (of course, the folks who made it didn't understand the Periodic Table of Elements, or they'd have placed similarly behaving items in a column, with the most reactive elements towards the edges, except for the far right column for things that never go bad)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Out where I used to be from (Oregon), the main reason to home-school kids was to give them intense religious indoctrination, and little else. I once overheard a home-schooled girl who, when asked a simple history question (what was the Louisiana Purchase, I believe), stated "That's not in the Bible, I don't have to know that."
Chilling.
Just junk food for thought...
A much better chart for physicists and physical chemists is Stowe's 3-D periodic table. http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/periodic/stowetable .html which arranges things according to the principal quantum numbers. It comes out completely symmetric.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
And if their State Dept of Education catches up with her parents, they'll be in trouble. There's a certain curriculum you're supposed to conform to, if I recall correctly. We looked into the possibility of home-schooling for our daughter when the empire-building little dictator of the local elementary wouldn't accept several independant medical evaluations about her special needs. In a state where the average number of special needs kids is around 8%, somehow his school of 700 kids had none at all... But I'm ranting, and the guy has moved on, and the school caved when we talked to the State Board of Education and said the magic words "due process hearing"...
The more you learn about chemistry the more the current form makes sense. This piece of crap is just more visual trash will inhibit real learning in school.
Although, perhaps I could tear this 'new version' to peices even better if there were a version I could actually SEE posted somewhere on the net. There are fuzzy low-res versions all over the place, but not a one that I can really study.
There are DOZENs if not HUNDREDS of different table formats. I doubt that this one is even moderatly new, excepting perhaps the irrelevant backdrop. The layout depends on what is of interest; a astrophysics professor might have one that accentuates the electron energy states, whereas a chemical engineer might have a chart which accentuates the prevailence of an element in nature.
The current form is incredibly logical. Purly logical. Proton count increases from top-left to bottom right. Happens to correspond to about a half dozen different patterns. God, I can't even think of all the variables that our simple, standard table shows. There is SO much information packed into it. Even if you stripped out everything but the symbol the current table would convey a staggering amount of information. This new table? Mmmm.... not so much.
As for your last comment: It *IS* worse. Because eventually it will have to be discarded and students will have to learn to use the 'normal' periodic table. Sure it will be easier than if they had never heard of elements and protons etc before, but they won't be familiar with it. They will be slower with its use, and more easily frustrated. And public schools are famous for leaving out details that a teacher 'doesn't feel is important'. I tutored college chemistry: anything which adds to confusion without benifit is very bad. There is just too much new information to convey in a short time to have to add yet something else.
All of that said, I read the article hoping to find something which IS better and more intuitive. I believe one could be made which would be better suited to 'general use'; e.g. the casual chemist: the engineer type that looks to a table once in a while to calculate combustion energies, or for the student of general inorganic chemistry. Was bummed to see that POS.