Today, February 7, is National Periodic Table Day. You could be forgiven for not knowing – it was actually only ‘founded’ in May 2015, so this is only the second time it’s rolled around. February 7 was picked because it marks the date on which John Newlands’ first periodic table of elements was published way back in 1863. By happy coincidence, it’s also only a day before the birthday of Dmitri Mendeleev, the scientist most famously associated with the periodic table.
To mark the occasion here is a selection of periodic tables I’ve made over the past few years, which include a serious look at element properties, and a not-so-serious look at the names of newly-discovered elements that were rejected over the years.
The periodic table has actually only just been ‘completed’ in the past year. Four new elements had their discoveries and names confirmed in 2016 and replaced the last few placeholder positions in the table. I say ‘completed’ because scientists are still trying to create elements beyond element 118, so in years to come an extra row may be required to accommodate new element entries.
The origins of the elements’ names are varied both in terms of language and in terms of what they have named after. This table, created in collaboration with Prof. Mark Lorch from the University of Hull, tries to pin down where those names come from. There’s also an accompanying explanatory poster on why some elements have symbols that don’t match up with their names.
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