The Periodic Table Highlights from the History of

The Periodic Table: Highlights from the History of an Icon Carmen J. Giunta Le Moyne College

Abstract The periodic table is an icon of chemistry—one of the few visual images that makes anyone who sees it think of chemistry. The periodic table has even branched out beyond its chemical roots as an arrangement for vegetables, desserts, and the like. Back to chemistry: where did it come from? When? How? What chemistry had to be known before the table could be discovered? (For that matter, was it discovered or invented? ) These are just a few of the questions to be touched on in a whirlwind tour of the history of the periodic table from its devising to the present, including various shapes and sizes it has assumed over the years.

Periodic Table of Desserts

P. T. with Cupcakes

Periodic Table silver carbon tellurium copper argon plutonium of the Elements

Periodic properties Electronegativity

Periodic properties Molar volume

Periodic properties Ionization energy

Periodic properties Julius Lothar Meyer, Annalen der Chemie, Supplementband 7, 354 (1870)

Prerequisites • concept/definition of element • lists of elements • properties of elements • how to order elements (atomic weights) • enough elements for patterns to emerge

Prerequisites: Boyle Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist

Prerequisites: Lavoisier

Prerequisites: Dalton John Dalton and his atomic weights

Prerequisites: Cannizzaro Stanislao Cannizzaro; translation of his Sunto (1858)

Triads Cl Br I Li Na K S Se Te Ca Sr Ba Johann Döbereiner and his triads (1829)

1862: Vis Tellurique Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois

Law of Octaves: 1865 John Newlands and his law of octaves

Law of Octaves

Julius Lothar Meyer’s partial table (1864)

Julius Lothar Meyer 1870 table

Dmitrii Mendeleev

Dmitrii Mendeleev (1869)

Dmitrii Mendeleev (1871)

After Mendeleev

About that new column

About that new column • Argon discovered 1894 • “molecular” weight = 39. 9 • monatomic • no room between K & Ca • Helium discovered 1895 • Ramsay places Ar in new group after Cl & before K • Ramsay predicts other monatomic inert gases • Ramsay & Travers find Ne, Kr, Xe in 1898 Ramsay, Gases of the Atmosphere (1896)

Atomic number Henry Moseley & |his X-ray spectral data

Glenn Seaborg

Early th 20 Century

Standard modern table

Other arrangements Left-step table (Charles Janet, 1928)

Other arrangements Spiral table (after Edgar Longman, 1951)

Other arrangements Philip Stewart

Other arrangements Periodic roller coaster (William Crookes, 1898)

Other arrangements Periodic table (Theodore Gray, 1951)

Resources • Carmen Giunta, Classic Chemistry website, http: //web. lemoyne. edu/giunta/ • Mark Leach, INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables, http: //www. metasynthesis. com/webbook/35_pt/pt_database. php? Button=All • Eric R. Scerri, The Periodic Table: Its Story and its Significance (2007) & A Tale of Seven Elements (2013) • J. W. van Spronsen, The Periodic System of Chemical Elements: a History of the First