The author is a science reviewer
The A3 poster hangs at the bottom of the kitchen blackboard, just below the Middlesex County Cricket Club schedule and the garbage truck schedule. Given the team’s sorry T20 form this season, it’s the only poster of the trio that brings joy.
Of course, it’s a thumbnail of the periodic table. The grid, familiar to all schoolchildren, arranges all known elements into rows and columns according to their properties.
Soon, it won’t be so familiar to some: India’s education authorities have confirmed that the periodic table of elements, along with the subject of evolution, will be dropped from some school textbooks. The announcement sparked protests from teachers who feared the omissions – designed to streamline lessons disrupted by the pandemic – would dent India’s reputation in science and technology. The theory of evolution is the foundation of biology – and the periodic table is actually the foundation of our understanding of the world.
Each square in the array represents an element, which is a substance made up of only one type of atom. Each element has its own name, symbol, and unique “atomic number,” the number of protons in an atomic nucleus. A hydrogen atom has the symbol H and has one proton in its nucleus, hence the atomic number 1. There are 118 elements, at least 92 of which are known to occur naturally (most of the rest are lab-made and often unstable). Four newest elements were officially added in 2016.
However, the origin of the periodic table dates back to the 1860s. Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev built on the work of others by taking 63 known elements—including hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, and potassium—and Repeating (periodic) patterns sort them. He also noticed gaps, which he accurately predicted belonged to undiscovered elements.
I have always had a soft spot for Mendeleev’s creations. For the record, I have shown no particular aptitude for chemistry and achieved a B at A-level – a consolation considering an unfortunate mock practice during which I The test paper accidentally encountered a Bunsen burner.
This shortcoming, I’m ashamed to say, still drives me nuts: In 2019, I wrote a column celebrating the 150th anniversary of the periodic table, only to confuse atomic numbers with mass numbers. Some things about chemistry still get me thinking even today: have to work harder.
This probably explains my fascination with it: to me, chemistry is more like magic, and the periodic table is a Rosetta Stone that I can never really decipher. But I’m still happy for this watchmaking triumph: name, character, history.
Some elements are named after the places where they were discovered: berkelium, darmstadtium, moscovium, and tennessine. Some elements are named after people: einsteinium, mendelevium, and seaborgium, named after American chemist Glenn Seaborg, who was involved in the discovery of 10 elements. Meitnerium honors Lise Meitner, who really deserved a Nobel Prize; she was nominated nearly 50 times. And some that sound like props from a Marvel movie: krypton, europium (used in banknotes), promethium, thorium, and neptunium (produced as waste from nuclear reactors).
The most recently added elements are made by knocking smaller elements together, and they exist only briefly before decaying. Chemists are now trying to create elements 119 and 120 in a similar way. If researchers can muster the energy needed, they may one day reach rumored “islands of stability” filled with heavier but longer-lasting elements.
What an exciting endgame that would be. Give me 120 more than T20 every day.