the periodic table

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Isn't the periodic table fascinating. So many facts crucial to the advancement of mankind that lots of people pass by.

it sure is

I also agree. Sometimes I look at the table and think about the long struggle for knowledge that lead from the Earth/Wind/Fire/Water models of the ignorant ancients to the bewildered in-between state of Paracelsus and the alchemists and then on to the amazing era of atomic exploration and molecular engineering we live in and I am overcome with awe. The table is at the root of so much.

At the top of the table I think of stars, galaxies and organic structures including nucleic acids and all the wonderful things that they have produced. Deeper into the table I think about Rutherford and Feynman and Quantum Electrodynamics.... and the amazing energies at the LHC.

It is a beautiful, awe inspiring and amazing thing.

Somebody post the Yahoo video of Tom Leherer singing the song of that title (to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I'm The Very Model of a Modern Major General").

http://www.ptable.com

http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table

What is really amazing about the Periodic Table is that Mendeleyov was able to piece together the known elements and was able to predict three new elements along with their observable chemical properties. And it was done before quantum physics was invented. it was a triumph of purely empirical observation done without any detailed theory of atomic structure. Done before quantum physics, done before the elctron was discovered.

The entire periodic table can be constructed just using the Pauli Exclusion Principle but that was discovered much later than the Periodic Table.

"Dr. Bill Riemers writes: classical physics tells us that electrons captured by element #137 (as yet undiscovered and unnamed) of the periodic table will move at the speed of light. The idea is quite simple, if you don't use math to explain it. 137 is the odds that an electron will absorb a single photon. Protons and electrons are bound by interactions with photons. So when you get 137 protons, you get 137 photons, and you get a 100% chance of absorption. An electron in the ground state will orbit at the speed of light. This is the electromagnetic equivalent of a black hole. For gravitational black hole, general relativity comes to the rescue to prevent planets from orbiting at the speed of light and beyond. For an electromagnetic black hole, general relativity comes to the rescue and saves element 137 from having electrons moving faster than the speed of light. However, even with general relativity, element 139 would still have electrons moving faster than light. According to Einstein, this is an impossibility. Thus proving that we still don't understand 137." --Feynman Online