In the October 2011 issue of Scientific American, we celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. Learn more about its impact on our daily lives in our Special Report.
Main Sources & More to Explore:
- The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. By Deborah Blum. Penguin Press; 2010.
- The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of Elements. By Sam Kean. Little, Brown and Company; 2010.
- In Your Element. Monthly column in Nature Chemistry.
- The History and Use of Our Earth's Chemical Elements: A Reference Guide. By Robert E. Krebs.
- Chemistry in Its Element podcast from Chemistry World,
- The Elements, by Tom Lehrer
- "I Was a Teenage Element Hoarder," By Michael Battaglia
Interactive by Krista Fuentes
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21 Comments
Add CommentBrilliant idea! Terrific graphics, too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn excellent and compact resource for students and instructors alike. For more such resources on elements and the periodic table please see,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://ericscerri.com/
Eric Scerri
UCLA, Department of Chemistry
An excellent chart with extremely helpful notes especailly for students!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat idea but all my study books in the late 50's only listed 92 elements, as some were clearly discovered prior to that, I suspect all my books were way out of date.....Bummer....DOH....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis a great tool. There is another excellent interactive to accompany this periodic table.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www-nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vchart/index.html
What a wonderful aid for students (and for instructors as well, no doubt - and for anyone curious about the periodic table). Congratulations to SciAm and Davide Castelvecchi. I wish I'd had access to this kind of tool when I had chemistry as a subject - I'd have gone much further, I'm sure! (That was long, LONG ago, well before PCs, Internet, etc).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour descriptive caption below the title should read "... each has its own chemically idiosyncratic characteristics" (not "... each have...", as currently written). Some of the links (e.g. the one to 'Davide Castelvecchi' do not seem to work properly - when I try this one, I get a blank page). I do hope Mr Castelvecchi will continue the development of his Interactive Periodic Table as a basic tool to aid in the learning of chemistry - make it available as a download, for instance, to help those who do not have ready access to the Internet; I believe there would be many other potential ways to further develop this great idea.
I've been unable to get to the website noted at the link provided, http://ericscerri.com/, to work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGSC
Note to Eric Scerri - finally did manage to get the website opened; please ignore last. -- GSC
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest you try http://webelements.com/, http://www.ptable.com/ and http://periodictable.com/ where you will find far more informative and interesting web representations of the periodic table. Googling "web periodic table" without the quotes will find those i've mentioned and a few others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisptable.com has a much more complete and perhaps available on-line periodic table. It is presented in many languages with many options. The information in this table is unique, but would be better placed in a place such as ptable.com. There, the information would be seen more often and by default, is much more accessible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso check this link http://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/35_pt/pt_database.php
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou will find an exhaustive list of different periodic tables, some fun, some serious.
Terrific resource - nice work. I like the ability to quickly see groups such as halogens and non-metals. I happened to click on boron and saw that you wrote that it has no known role in biology. But check this out:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S01/03/29A80/index.xml
Maybe better to say "almost no role..."
There are lots of these interactive periodic tables out there. Some are better than others. This one is pretty skimpy on the scientific info, but OK for general public. I'm viewing in Chrome and two elements are blanked out - AC and LA (Actinium and Lanthanum). They only show code numbers and are not linked to a subpage apparently. Strange.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am curious:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can you have the highest melting point be hotter than the highest boiling point? Would not the boiling point of W be higher than its melting point? Or is W unable to boil?
For W (Tungsten):
"This element has the highest melting point of all elements, at 6,170 degrees Fahrenheit (3,410 degrees Celsius) ..."
and for Re (Rhenium):
"... It has the highest boiling point of any element, at 5,596 degrees Celsius...."
- oh. I see my mistake. Confusion between C and F.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs Gilda Radner would say, "nevermind!"
Thanks Mr. Chandy,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease get in touch via regular E-mail. I would like to discuss interactive periodic tables etc. with you.
all the best
eric scerri
ericscerri.com/
see this website for various periodic table as well as history & philosophy of chemistry resources
I like this site/periodic table too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.webelements.com/
Mark
This is a great start. What I'd like to see is an additional workspace in which the reader could combine elements, see the result (for instance, combine 2 H and 1 O and watch the workspace fill up with water), and have the result explained.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat job!
I clicked on two of the elements and the blurb told me how they are a pollutant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan't you do better than that? Does EVERYTHING have to be politicized?
Flourine is simply a pollutant?
Ridiculous. Tell us what they can and have been be used for, rather than how horribly awful they are. You have a few sentences, use them wisely. And we wonder why people have such a dim view of science.
Best regards.
I enjoyed listening to http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/podcast/element.asp
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you.
But you could do better with your own presentation of the periodic table. Please see the following:
http://www.ptable.com/
Re the categories along the top of the table: Metalloids|Non-Metals|Halogens|Noble Gases. Does this mean that the halogens are not non-metals?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this