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Periodic Table Turns 150 Years Old (economist.com)

The Economist tells the story of how French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier came to publish the first putatively comprehensive list of chemical elements -- substances incapable of being broken down by chemical reactions into other substances -- known today as the periodic table. It was Lavoisier and his wife Marie-Anne who pioneered the technique of measuring quantitatively what went into and came out of a chemical reaction, as a way of getting to the heart of what such a reaction really is. "Where the story of the periodic table of the elements really starts is debatable," reports The Economist, "but Lavoisier's laboratory is as good a place as any to begin..." Here's an excerpt from the report: Lavoisier's list of elements, published in 1789, five years before his execution, had 33 entries. Of those, 23 -- a fifth of the total now recognized -- have stood the test of time. Some, like gold, iron and sulphur, had been known since ancient days. Others, like manganese, molybdenum and tungsten, were recent discoveries. What the list did not have was a structure. It was, avant la lettre, a stamp collection. But the album was missing.

Creating that album, filling it and understanding why it is the way it is took a century and a half. It is now, though, a familiar feature of every high-school science laboratory. Its rows and columns of rectangles, each containing a one- or two-letter abbreviation of the name of an element, together with its sequential atomic number, represent an order and underlying structure to the universe that would have astonished Lavoisier. It is little exaggeration to say that almost everything in modern science is connected, usually at only one or two removes, to the periodic table.

85 comments

  1. Re:Periodic table? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no this is the list of things to try smoking, much like the way a purity test is used.

  2. The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    in Russia, and then republished in Germany the next year. The "table" of Lavoisier was a much simpler affair, which was pretty far from what a "periodic table" is. It had "elements" in it like "fire", "light", "caloric" and complex molecules.

    But let's forget the science and go for the propaganda.

    1. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      If we were going with propaganda, we'd be mentioning how the proto-socialists of Lavoisier's day cut his head off in the name of enlightenment.

      But we're not, we're simply celebrating the work of the dude who fathered modern chemistry. Now go slurp down some oatmeal and whine about Edison.

    2. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Europe == good, Russia == bad. Follow the guidelines set by the European Commission and celebrate the superiority of European culture over the whole world. As the preamble to the European Constitution says, Europe is the bringer of civilization. There has never been, there cannot be and will never been a civilization worth the name beside Europe. If you do not accept and proclaim this, if you do not march in the streets under the blue flag of the EU singing the Ode to Joy and are not prepared and willing to do all that is necessary for Europe - united from the Atlantic to the Urals - to rule the fates of the whole worlds, as the great De Gaulle said, you're a fascist and should be ostracized and prosecuted.

    3. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you read that reply or just got triggered at mentioning of Russia? The moron had âoefireâ as an element. If he started chemistry, then we should go back much farther, im sure dark age alchemists also published charts with nonesense. Moron #2. Oh and Economist is fake news.

    4. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Idiots who invoke "fake news" at all at this point are the fake news. If you study economics you know it's actually an art, not a science beyond the sterile theory - simply because human behavior is a difficult field.

    5. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The French Revolution was bourgeois - that is, the people who cut his head off were not socialists, but capitalists who did not want to pay taxes to the monarch.

      Get an education, please.

    6. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well Lenin did reference it but you are correct and correct to ridicule the OP. http://sfr-21.org/french-revolutions.html

    7. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lavoisier was not a "moron". The goal to group the elements took a long time and a lot of work, and his was the first effort.

      But it was Mendeleev who made the most important breakthrough - creating a model of the properties which allowed to classify elements by weight AND a periodic repeat of their chemical properties, which is the periodic part of the table. This, together with the idea of valence laid the foundations of the atomic theory, which eventually explained the physical nature of chemistry.

    8. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. To be a "Periodic Table" it has to be "periodic" and an actual table. A non-periodic list would seem to be lacking 100% of the characteristics. Mendeleev wasn't the first to figure out families, but he did figure out (or at least stake his reputation on his wild hunch) that it was so regularly periodic that he could predict where specific missing elements would be found.

      Lavoisier did great things, but his name is also a little tainted by the fact that Priestly visited him and told him how to create this great new gas by a certain method, and then Lavoisier promptly performed the same process, created a gas with the same properties, then claimed credit for discovering it (now known as Oxygen).

    9. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Sique · · Score: 5, Informative

      150 years ago, Antoine Lavoisier was already dead for 75 years. Thus nobody is claiming that 150 years ago, Lavoisier was discovering the periodic table. But what he did: he discovered more chemical elements than any other person in history, thus laying the very foundation Dmitri Mendeleev could build on. Antoine Lavoisier was the giant, on whose shoulders Dmitri Mendeleev was able to see further.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    10. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Calydor · · Score: 2

      So now science should only publish when the theories are perfect?

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    11. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe you did not read the summary, which makes the claim:

      The Economist tells the story of how French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier came to publish the first putatively comprehensive list of chemical elements ... known today as the periodic table.

      And you did not read TFA, which also makes the claim that the history of the periodic table starts with Lavoisier, which is also quite debatable:

      Where the story of the periodic table of the elements really starts is debatable. But Lavoisier’s laboratory is as good a place as any to begin, for it was Lavoisier who published the first putatively comprehensive list of chemical elements

    12. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Which fucking moron modded this shit up.

      Clearly no one who read the interesting and well written TFA, which gives both the historical context and the subsequent developments in order to place Mendeleev's invention both in history and to show its enormous level of importance.

      Propaganda is ignoring or rewriting history, not accurately reporting it.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    13. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mendeleev did a very important piece of the puzzle. But the periodic table was a work of dozens of people. If you look at Dobereiner's law if triads or Bunsen's coloured lines then you see that Mendeleev is just of of them. So is Pauli.

      Actually that is nice in human science that one-by-one we are clueless ants, together we are giants.

    14. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by jdoeii · · Score: 0

      Just a few years ago we celebrated 100 years of GTR discovery. Imagine that in celebration of that event Economist would run an article on Hendrik Lorentz without mentioning Albert Einstein. Lorentz was indeed a great scientist and his contribution certainly enabled Einstein's discovery. But wouldn't such an article rise some eyebrows and make people think of bias against Einstein?

    15. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Bob_Who · · Score: 1

      Jeez.... It sounds to me like all you guys are menstruating.

    16. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

      . Imagine that in celebration of that event Economist would run an article on Hendrik Lorentz without mentioning Albert Einstein.

      Imagine if the Economist ran an article about the periodic table without mentioning Mendeleev. Well, you'd have to because that never happened.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    17. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      On the pale blue dot there are power zones of some idiots, sometimes referred as Russia, EU, US, China, India etc. Those powerful idiots try to sell their zones as nations or something like that.

      But we are humans. And science is global. Mendeleev was a member of a global community of scientists stretching not just in space, but in time as well.

    18. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 1, Informative

      The blame is on /. editors and whoever submitted the post. The original article is spot on and describes the history of chemical elements and Mendeleev gets the largest part of it.

    19. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1
      Wiki

      Lavoisier defined an element as a substance that cannot be broken down into a simpler substance by a chemical reaction.[5] This simple definition served for a century and lasted until the discovery of subatomic particles. Lavoisier's book contained a list of "simple substances" that Lavoisier believed could not be broken down further, which included oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphorus, mercury, zinc and sulfur, which formed the basis for the modern list of elements

      which happened almost 100 years before Mendeleev...

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      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    20. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe you did not read the summary (...) And you did not read TFA

      Maybe you're dense but probably just trolling... the chemical elements used to be a list, before someone organized them into a table 150 years ago. The first reasonably complete list was published 230 years ago by somebody else. The list lead to the table, so that's why they say speak of it as the "story behind it" and "what you now know as the periodic table" because that's the form we present it in today.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    21. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, on the other hand, there are so many articles about relativity which only mention Albert Einstein and fail to mention Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert.

    22. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Edison? Do you mean Joseph Swan?

    23. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The list lead to the table" is the interpretation of the slashdot illiterate idiot, and not what actually happened.

    24. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Russia's have interfered with the Aristotleian purity of our chemical essences!

    25. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or perhaps your claim is as fake as other Russian propaganda.... you see how positive claims about Russia cannot be trusted because of the Putin propaganda.

      See how that works?

      Perhaps they need to eject the latest dictator Putin then we can take them more seriously?

    26. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by tomhath · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Did you read that reply or just got triggered at mentioning of Russia?

      Did you read his reply? Socialism essentially started with the French Revolution and Reign of Terror; Lavoisier was an intellectual and thus an enemy of the state.

    27. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please enlighten us sir wise one.

    28. Re:The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The blame is on /. editors and whoever submitted the post.

      Agreed. The 150 years in TFS title essentially relates to Mendeleev who's not even mentioned in TFS body which instead focuses on Lavoisier. Nothing to do with TFA.

    29. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Illiterates should not read Wiki. It is harmful for them.

    30. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The main reason Lavoisier was hated was that he was a tax collector. In your rather limited world-view shouldn't that make him the socialist?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    31. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendeleev by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Socialism essentially started with the French Revolution

      Are we ignoring Taborites now?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  3. Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Russia's government is a bad actor. The same person or small cabal has been in charge for 4-5 terms. That's not healthy even if they do fake a vote, your apology makes no difference. You're a traitor to democracy.

    1. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This is totally irrelevant to the point of the OP. The PERIODIC LAW, which is the reason why the periodic table is called periodic in the first place was discovered by Mendeleev, and not by Lavoisier. Celebrating the latter as the creator of the periodic table just because he made a table of sorts is beyond ridiculous.

      But then, it is the Economist, which is hardly famous for the scientific education of its authors.

    2. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Celebrating the latter as the creator of the periodic table just because he made a table of sorts is beyond ridiculous.

      Yeah it would if anyone did that.

      But then, it is the Economist, which is hardly famous for the scientific education of its authors.

      RAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE!!!

      Since you haven't read TFA, let me inform you that your rage is misplaced. You could read it, or simply redirect your rage elsewhere.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Read the fucking summary and get back to me.

      RRAAAAAGGGGEEEE!!!

      How on earth is the Economist supposed to be responsible for a summary of an article on a third party website? They're not but to admit so would spoil your delightfully righteous rage.

      Why should I read an article about chemistry (or economics) in the Economist?

      Because it is informative, interesting and well written.

      It's kind of funny. You're incredibly angry about a summary someone posted and refuse to read the article which would show you that you're in fact making the wrong judgement of the article about it's summary.

      Never, ever let the facts get in the way of a REALLY good hatefest.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by hackertourist · · Score: 4, Informative

      The fucking summary doesn't do a good job of summarizing the article. The article is 34 paragraphs long, 15 of which are devoted to Mendeleev.

      And thanks to your prejudice, you've missed out on what's actually a really good summary of the history of the periodic table.

    5. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Tell you what you read the article and I'll fuck off. Since I know you're pathologically opposed to doing that (because hey you might be wrong and we can't be having with that), I think I'll stick around.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      what's actually a really good summary of the history of the periodic table.

      I thought so too! Sort of makes me wonder how on earth they isolated elements without knowing either what they were looking for or having sophisticated equipment. I would love to read a longer history that went into all those nerdy details, plus the dead ends and partial discoveries.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    7. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      The same person or small cabal has been in charge for 4-5 terms. That's not healthy even if they do fake a vote,

      It seems to be "healthy" in the US for the Congress, which has a re-election rate above 90%...

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    8. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't want to read the article, fine, just retract all the BS you said about it as an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to hearsay.

      If you don't want to do either, then you're much worse than the Economist of Fox News that you were deriding earlier.

    9. Re: Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice.

    10. Re: Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But the difference is, which you failed to mention (probably on purpose), was that those Congressman can and DO get voted out on occasion. Whereas in Russia, you are stuck with Putin until he's ready to give up control. YOU HAVE NO SAY. Meanwhile in America, we might not have much say in the matter, but every vote counts, and it isn't rigged. I'll take our system over Russia's "President for life, well because I said so that's why" politics anyday.

    11. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's summary.

      Firstly, the word is summery. And maybe it was last week, but it's typical February now.

      P.S. Haven't you had your call-up papers yet?

    12. Re:Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Suck my dick. The Periodic table has nothing to do with Lavoisier.

    13. Re: Crybaby Putinite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The United States is a bad actor. Its leaders are the biggest supporters of global terrorism, contribute the most to destabilisation of countries and are responsible for the loss of millions of innocent lives.

  4. Well, by Tablizer · · Score: 1, Funny

    Happy Birthdayium!

    1. Re:Well, by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

      its a tough one. lol

      --
      [($)]
  5. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendelee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sure, the "moron" debunked the wildly popular phlogiston theory and discovered hydrogen and oxygen. He put chemistry on its way to uncovering the nature of specific gravity with his focus on weights and gases, at a time when one was unorthodox and the other virtually unknown.

    He did all of this prior to America becoming a nation, before anything faster than a horse carriage was available to share ideas over land.

    But sure, he's a "moron" according to people like who know nothing of history or science.

  6. You're hardly a scholar! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mendeleev's work was a stitching together of a lot of people's works. I haven't read him directly but I believe IIRC he did and is famous for mentioning that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_periodic_table

    1. Re:You're hardly a scholar! by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 1

      Well, thanks for repeating the famous Isaac Newton quote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Mendeleev saw further than the people who worked before him, and that is why the periodic table is named after him.

      What you misunderstood about it from reading Wikipedia just to post a comment here is your own problem.

    2. Re:You're hardly a scholar! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You didn't read the link at all I see, typical I guess.. Try again to see the point. In 1864, the English chemist William Odling also drew up a table that was remarkably similar to the table produced by Mendeleev.[26] Odling overcame the tellurium-iodine problem and even managed to get thallium, lead, mercury and platinum into the right groups, which is something that Mendeleev failed to do at his first attempt. Odling failed to achieve recognition, however, since it is suspected that he, as Secretary of the Chemical Society of London, was instrumental in discrediting Newlands' earlier work on the periodic table.[17]

      For comparison, Dmitri Mendeleev arranged the elements by atomic mass, corresponding to relative molar mass. On March 1 [O.S. February 17] 1869, he put a date on his first table, and sent it for publication.

      Also, Isaac Newton was repeating someone else's words. Google it if you care.

    3. Re: You're hardly a scholar! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      E e e e, some Brit found periodic table in Mendeleevs work just like some other Brit found Neptune in a works of a French astronomer. And don't forget another Brit that was delusional about some octaves.

      Sorry sir. The only periodic table there was discovered by Mendeleev, with Mayer coming close. The Lavoisier guy was a great scientist (not a Brit for sure) but he lived a hundred years too early to have discovered th periodic law because the elements were not known yet.

      Same thing like with the Wright brothers: other people had plunged and fell from high places a lot but only the Americans invented the aeroplane.

    4. Re:You're hardly a scholar! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      And it was quite easy to stand on Lavoisier's shoulders, on account of him having no head to get in the way.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Book recommendations on the history of chemistry by hackertourist · · Score: 1

    The story of the discovery of the elements, as briefly described in TFA is a fascinating one and I want more. What books on this subject can you recommend?

  8. Periodic Table Turns 150 Years Old by jovius · · Score: 1

    So it is more like a one time table then?

    1. Re:Periodic Table Turns 150 Years Old by serviscope_minor · · Score: 0

      So it is more like a one time table then?

      aperiodic table.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  9. A much older table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  10. Chemistry Found Thermite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    at ground zero but real TV "news" wont report it.

    1. Re:Chemistry Found Thermite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tard spotted

  11. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendelee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you lot have complex compound forces as particles....yeh HE was the blind idiot. YOUR quasi particles are the real deal.

  12. The real question is, without... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier's contribution, would Mendeleev have laid out his initial periodic table, or done something different/not at all.

    As others remind, it is all about stepping on the shoulders of giants. And it is surprising how something as simple as documenting some scientific data and putting it on a paper for visual reference could elude some members of the scientific community back in the days when paper was expensive and space consuming, compared to today when disk, monitor space, and reorganization of data are cheap and plentiful.

  13. Obligatory Tom Lehrer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGM-wSKFBpo

  14. A much newer table by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1
    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  15. So It Has Come To This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's with al the news about tables?

    Tables are the root of all evil!

  16. Periodic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After 150 years, you would think they could finally stop calling it "The Periodic Table" and finally make it "The Permanent Table".

    But seriously, it's amazing that The Periodic Table has lasted for so long when you consider how very few elements had been known back then and how so many more have either been discovered or created since then. Yet, the 150-year-old Periodic Table has still held up. There are alternative forms of representing the table of the elements, but so far none has been as successful as The Periodic Table.

  17. Actually by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

    It was the German doctor Mengeleev who discovered the periodic table. Unfortunately, a lot of innocent humans were sacrificed during the research, so it's the French and the Russians that get the limelight these days.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    1. Re: Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you even read? The history is documented.

  18. FAKE NEWS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or as our glorious founder always said back in his time, "lying press!" (seriously, look up it's origins.)

    Do you really believe the media telling you it's that old? The scientsts just promote it to keep their jobs and get rich! It probably isn't older than the 70s when that Physicist Jimmy Carter was pushing his science to indoctrinate our children.

  19. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendelee by Dr.+Bombay · · Score: 1

    The execution of Lavoisier set the progress of chemistry back by decades.

  20. Real history of the Periodic Table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lavoisier publsihed his table of the known elements and sorted them in categories: gases, metals, nonmetals, "earths"

    In 1829 Döbereiner found "Triads" of elements (like Li, Na, K) which behaved similarly, and where the "middle" element (when ordered by atomic weight) was almost the average of the first and third.
    By 1843 Gmelin had identified ten triads plus several groups of dour and five elenments.
    In 1862 de Chancourtois published a spiral of elements ordered by atomic weight and noticed similarities in similar distances. His work was ignored because he used geological terms.
    In 1864 Lothar Meyer published a table, in which he gave precedence of "valence" instead of atomic weight. He also predicted an element with atomic weight 73 "between" Si and Sn - the later found Germanium. At the same time Oding published a table ordererd by atomic weight and noticed peridicities.
    1863 to 1866 Newlands published a series of papers in which he noticed "octaves" in the elements when ordered by atomic weight.
    1869/70 Mendeleev and Meyer nearly at the same time published the modern form of the PSE. Meyers was an expanded form of his 1864 table, while Mendeleevs was - as far as I can determine - more rigorous in having free places etc.

    Avter the discovery of the atomic nucleus Moseley determined the positive charge of the nucleus and that the PSE ordered the elements by increaing charge.
    The modern layout was proposed by Deming in 1923.

  21. Re:Book recommendations on the history of chemistr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its documentaries but mvgroup.org has some really good ones about the history of the table.

  22. Re: The periodic table was published by Mendelee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    True. Yet the periodic table was an invention of Mendeleev and no one else.

  23. Re: Real history of the Mendeleev Table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mendeleev Table was and is the only working one. Mosley was the one who explained why (the periodicity was there not due to mass, but to nuclear charges ; Mayer did not get that, simply grouping the mass values, and Mendeleev got that by using his chemical knowledge, actually swapping some elements order, like potassium and argon, and leaving the blanks in the table for then-unknown elements like technetium).

      Modern form of the table (long rows) has some debatable advantages over the original one (short rows); the later is still taught in Russian speaking countries and is useful, again, for chemical knowledge (tell me maximal valence of a transition metal from Dempsey table?).

    The rest was bunk, octaves of some crazy Brit and four magical elements, of some ancient Greeks. it wasn't remotely useful.

  24. Re: Real history of the Mendeleev Table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dempsey --- Deming, blame autocorrect

  25. molar weight can be deceptive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are a couple of spots in the table where the molar weight DECREASES for a subsequent element in the table. The concept of atomic number ordering came later when protons were discovered.

  26. I award you zero points, etc. by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Your link may shows that it happens, but that says nowt one way nor t'other on his claim about it not being healthy.

    Your logical fallacy is ignoratio elenchi. On top of that, tha can fuck reyt off.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  27. There's... by thomn8r · · Score: 1

    Antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium...

    1. Re:There's... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All hail Tom Lehrer!!

  28. Re:Book recommendations on the history of chemistr by GonzoPhysicist · · Score: 1

    The Disappearing Spoon is a good read

    --
    horror vacui