National Periodic Table Day
Happy 6th annual National Periodic Table Day!This new national day was founded in 2016 by David T. Steineker, an inventor, author, and chemistry teacher in Louisville, Kentucky (shout out to my folks in the ‘Ville!) to mark the first publication of a periodic table. The day is not only meant to celebrate a pillar of modern chemistry but also to highlight the many scientists and their contributions to the development of the periodic table of elements.
So, grab your safety goggles, buckle up, and make sure your pocket protector is upright and in the locked position: time for a (very brief and decidedly nonexhaustive) flyover of chemistry history!
Tom Lehrer’s Elements Song
Though it’s not the table we use now, John Newlands became the first to publish a periodic table on February 7, 1863. As Newlands attempted to organize the elements by atomic mass on his periodic table, he found a pattern that he called the law of octaves: every eight elements exhibited similar properties. His table organized fifty-six elements into eleven groups which were based on elemental characteristics.
Newlands, of course, was not the first to organize the elements. Antoine Lavoisier, known as the “father of modern chemistry,” began organizing the elements as metals and non-metals in 1789—just a few years before he had his date with fate at the guillotine during the French Revolution. He also determined that combustion and respiration were chemical reactions with the element he called “oxygen.” He is widely credited with discovering and naming oxygen and silicon. He also first defined the Law of Conservation of Mass: in Traité élémentaire de Chimie, he stated that “in every operation an equal quantity of matter exists both before and after the operations.”
We can thank Monsieur Lavoisier and his Law of Conservation of Mass for the joys* of balancing chemical equations we got to experience in high school chemistry. *actually, I did kind of enjoy this part of chem class
After Lavoisier came German chemist Johann Döbereiner; he found that elements tended to exists in families that shared similar chemical properties and that those similarities occurred at regular increments of atomic weight and he worked to organize them into triads, establishing the periodic nature of chemical elements. His law of triads, proposed in 1829, only came to be truly appreciated later, during his lifetime he was best known for the Döbereiner Lamp—the first lighter. This invention—a jar containing hydrogen gas with a valve on it to release burst of the flammable gas that would react with finely divided platinum—was predicated on his study and experimentation with catalysis (a term coined by Swedish chemist J.J. Berzelius) and the catalytic action of platinum on hydrogen.via GIPHYSo, standing on the shoulders of Antoine Lavoisier and Johann Döbereiner, among others, John Newlands arranged and published the first formal periodic table. The framework for the periodic table we use today, though, was the brainchild of Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, in 1869. His table was organized by both atomic weight and groups of similar chemical characteristics. Most remarkable, though, was that his table included spaces for elements that had not yet been discovered—some of which Mendeleev accurately predicted using the law of periodicity outlined in his table. This periodic table also served to validate the existence of atoms—a then-controversial topic of debate—and even hinted that subatomic particles were a thing!The periodic table was refined in 1913 by British physicist Henry Moseley, who used X-rays to measure the elements wavelengths. Moseley correlated the wavelength measurement of an element to its atomic number and rearranged the table accordingly. Incidentally, understanding the wavelengths of the chemical elements—aside from refining the cornerstone of modern chemistry—allows us (well, trained professionals) to do some really cool tricks, like control the color of fireworks and create colorful fire tornadoes. You know, for funsies. …but for really real: don’t try these things at home.
If you’re looking to get your nerd on, there are a number of ways to observe National Periodic Table Day! Folks who like a challenge can find a number of quizzes and trivia games, in a wide range of difficulty levels, to test your knowledge of the elements—or maybe you just want to know what chemical element you are (I got Aluminum). For us special kind of nerds there is Elemensus™ which is essentially a mashup of the periodic table and Scrabble—and their tagline made me actually LOL: “Elemensus™ - all the Elements of a great board game. Why not play it periodically?”If you’d rather kick back with some tunes, I’ve put together a chemical element-themed playlist (as always, be aware that some songs contain expletives). Or perhaps, you’d rather get down with some chemistry comedy—or, um, chemistry dad jokes. Some chemistry-themed parody songs? You got it! And there’s always the amusing and adorable option to watch Daniel Radcliff singing Tom Lehrer’s Elements Song on the Graham Norton Show.However you decide to observe National Periodic Table Day, I hope you have tons of Fluorine Uranium Nitrogen! I know I will.