2. A quick overview of the modern periodic table

Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri

‘A quick overview of the modern periodic table’ explains the arrangement of elements in the periodic table, and introduces the concept of periodic law. Elements were originally ordered by their equivalent weight, but this was superseded by atomic weight, and then atomic number. There are many versions of the periodic table, but all obey periodic law, which states that after certain regular, but varying intervals, the chemical elements show an approximate repetition in their properties. Developments in physics, especially quantum mechanics and relativity, have changed the way we think about elements and periodicity. The number of known elements has increased to 118 as the result of the synthesis of artificial elements.

Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri

The periodic table of elements provides an arrangement of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number, electron configuration, and recurring chemical properties. The Periodic Table: A Very Short Introduction considers what led to the table’s construction and shows how the deeper meaning of its structure gradually became apparent with the development of atomic theory and quantum mechanics, which underlies the behaviour of all of the elements and their compounds. This new edition celebrates the completion of the seventh period of the table, with the ratification and naming of elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 as nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson, and incorporates recent advances in our understanding of the origin of the elements.


Vestnik RFFI ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Aslan Yu. Tsivadze

In November 1868, the Ministry of Enlightenment of Russia approved the Charter of the Russian Chemical Society (RCS), one of the Founding Members of which had been Dmitri Mendeleev. The first report on Mendeleev Periodic Table of Chemical Elements was delivered during a meeting of the RCS in March 1869. Therefore 1869 is considered by the world science as the year of discovery of the Periodic Law and formulation of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Year 2019 is the 150th anniversary since Dmitry Mendeleev discovered the Periodic System, and the United Nations proclaimed this year to be the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT2019). After a series of transformations, in 1992 the RCS became the Mendeleev Russian Chemical Society. In 2019, the RCS is holding anniversary events. The extraordinary Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry is one of them. It will be held in Saint Petersburg in September 2019 and will host approximately 3,000 foreign and Russian participants. English-speaking symposia, conferences and round tables on current issues of strategic development of science and technology are planned as a part of the Congress.


Author(s):  
Paul J. Karol

Uranium was Discovered in 1789 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in pitchblende ore from Joachimsthal, a town now in the Czech Republic. Nearly a century later, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev placed uranium at the end of his periodic table of the chemical elements. A century ago, Moseley used x-ray spectroscopy to set the atomic number of uranium at 92, making it the heaviest element known at the time. This chapter will deal with the quest to explore that limit and heavy and superheavy elements, and provide an update on where continuation of the periodic table is headed and some of the significant changes in its appearance and interpretation that may be necessary. Our use of the term “heavy elements” differs from that of astrophysicists who refer to elements above helium as heavy elements. The meaning of the term “superheavy” element is still not exactly agreed upon and has changed over the past several decades. “Ultraheavy” is occasionally used. Interestingly, there is no formal definition of “periodic table” by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in their glossary of definitions: the “Gold Book.” But there are plenty of definitions in the general literature—including Wikipedia, the collaborative, free, internet encyclopedia which calls the “periodic table” a “tabular arrangement of the chemical elements, organized on the basis of their atomic numbers, electron configurations (electron shell model), and recurring chemical properties. Elements are presented in order of increasing atomic number (the number of protons in the nucleus).” IUPAC’s first definition of a “chemical element” is: “A species of atoms; all atoms with the same number of protons in the atomic nucleus.” Their definition of atom: “the smallest particle still characterizing a chemical element. It consists of a nucleus of positive charge (Z is the proton number and e the elementary charge) carrying almost all its mass (more than 99.9%) and Z electrons determining its size.”


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
IGOR S. DMITRIEV

ABSTRACT: The history of Mendeleev's famous discovery has long been a matter of lively debate among experts. This essay proposes a new reading of this story, which differs from the well-known reconstructions made by Kedrov, Bensaude-Vincent, Graham and others. Particular attention is paid to the context of a Mendelevian thought and the analysis of the surviving outlines of his first variants of the Periodic Table. By considering Mendeleev's discovery of the Periodic Law one can identify the three principal stages in his work: 1) the composition of the ““first attempt””(pervaia proba) of the system of chemical elements and the discovery of the periodic character in dependence of the elements, properties on their atomic weights (late 1868-early 1869); 2) the composition of Attempt at a system of elements based on their atomic weights and chemical similarity as a temporary version of the Periodic Table (February 1869); 3) the composition of the Natural system of elements (November 1870). Mendeleevian work on Attempt revealed a lack of clear chemical criteria for unifying elements of different classes——the ““natural families”” and ““transitional metals””——into a general taxomonical scheme that forced him to reject the ideal structure of the system of elements that he had formed earlier (1868). It was only by November of 1870 that Mendeleev finally solved the ““unification problem,”” formulating the basic principles of his system. This article also discusses how Mendeleev's views on the structure of the Periodic System were mediated by his convictions regarding the constitution of organic compounds.


Author(s):  
Board of the journal "Herald of the RAS"

The United Nations declared 2019 the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Law, opened in 1869 by the great Russian scientist-encyclopedist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834–1907).


Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri

‘Physics invades the periodic table’ assesses the impact of key discoveries in physics on the understanding of the periodic table. Ernest Rutherford provided evidence for the nuclear structure of atoms, and also determined that the charge of an atom is equal to half its atomic weight. Anton van den Broek linked this principle to the number of protons in a nucleus, thus devising the notion of atomic number. Henry Moseley quantified this principle, and used it to show exactly how many elements would fill the gaps in the periodic table. Radioactive experiments created new forms of elements with different weights but the same charge, which Frederick Soddy identified as isotopes.


Author(s):  
Guillermo Restrepo

The Periodic Table, Despite its near 150 years, is still a vital scientific construct. Two instances of this vitality are the recent formulation of a periodic table of protein complexes (Ahnert et al. 2015) and the announcement of four new chemical elements (Van Noorden 2016). “Interestingly, there is no formal definition of ‘Periodic Table’,” claims Karol (2017) in his chapter of the current volume. And even worse, the related concepts that come into play when referring to the periodic table (such as periodic law, chemical element, periodic system, and some others) overlap, leading to confusion. In this chapter we explore the meaning of the periodic table and of some of its related terms. In so doing we highlight a few common mistakes that arise from confusion of those terms and from misinterpretation of others. By exploring the periodic table, we analyze its mathematics and discuss a recent comment by Hoffmann (2015): “No one in my experience tries to prove [the periodic table] wrong, they just want to find some underlying reason why it is right.” We claim that if the periodic table were “wrong,” its structure would be variable; however the test of the time, including similarity studies, show that it is rather invariable. An approach to the structure of the periodic system we follow in this chapter is through similarity. In so doing we review seven works addressing the similarity of chemical elements accounting for different number of elements and using different properties, either chemical or physical ones. The concept of “chemical element” has raised the interest of several scholars such as Paneth (1962) and is still a matter of discussion given the double meaning it has (see, e.g., Scerri 2007, Earley 2009, Ruthenberg 2009, Ghibaudi et al. 2013, van Brakel 2014, Restrepo & Harré 2015), which is confusing, leading to misconceptions. The two meanings of the concept of chemical element are basic and simple substance. According to Paneth (1962), a basic substance belongs to the transcendental world and it is devoid of qualities, and therefore is not perceptible to our senses.


2019 ◽  
Vol 91 (12) ◽  
pp. 2037-2042 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Balarew

Abstract By decision of the UN General Assembly 2019 was declared an International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. On this occasion, in Bulgaria, an anniversary postage stamp was issued. Search for a link between the properties of the chemical elements and their atomic weight was undertaken before Mendeleev by many chemists. It is characteristic of all these classifications that the observed proximity in the properties of the elements has been attributed to chance. Mendeleev, however, was the only one who perceived that beyond the periodicity of the elements’ properties there is an important natural law. With the discovery of the structure of atoms, the periodic table of chemical elements found its scientific explanation. The periodic table set an important task to chemistry – to look for the relationship between the composition and the properties of the substances, including the disclosure of the regularities which are the basis of the so-called “anomalies”.


2018 ◽  
Vol 90 (12) ◽  
pp. 1833-2092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman E. Holden ◽  
Tyler B. Coplen ◽  
John K. Böhlke ◽  
Lauren V. Tarbox ◽  
Jacqueline Benefield ◽  
...  

AbstractThe IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) Periodic Table of the Elements and Isotopes (IPTEI) was created to familiarize students, teachers, and non-professionals with the existence and importance of isotopes of the chemical elements. The IPTEI is modeled on the familiar Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements. The IPTEI is intended to hang on the walls of chemistry laboratories and classrooms. Each cell of the IPTEI provides the chemical name, symbol, atomic number, and standard atomic weight of an element. Color-coded pie charts in each element cell display the stable isotopes and the relatively long-lived radioactive isotopes having characteristic terrestrial isotopic compositions that determine the standard atomic weight of each element. The background color scheme of cells categorizes the 118 elements into four groups: (1) white indicates the element has no standard atomic weight, (2) blue indicates the element has only one isotope that is used to determine its standard atomic weight, which is given as a single value with an uncertainty, (3) yellow indicates the element has two or more isotopes that are used to determine its standard atomic weight, which is given as a single value with an uncertainty, and (4) pink indicates the element has a well-documented variation in its atomic weight, and the standard atomic weight is expressed as an interval. An element-by-element review accompanies the IPTEI and includes a chart of all known stable and radioactive isotopes for each element. Practical applications of isotopic measurements and technologies are included for the following fields: forensic science, geochronology, Earth-system sciences, environmental science, and human health sciences, including medical diagnosis and treatment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 91 (12) ◽  
pp. 1969-1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang-Su Cao ◽  
Han-Shi Hu ◽  
Jun Li ◽  
W. H. Eugen Schwarz

AbstractThe Periodic Law, one of the great discoveries in human history, is magnificent in the art of chemistry. Different arrangements of chemical elements in differently shaped Periodic Tables serve for different purposes. “Can this Periodic Table be derived from quantum chemistry or physics?” can only be answered positively, if theinternalstructure of the Periodic Table is explicitly connected to facts and data from chemistry. Quantum chemical rationalization of such a Periodic Tables is achieved by explaining the details ofenergies and radiiof atomiccore and valenceorbitals in theleadingelectron configurations of chemicallybondedatoms. The coarse horizontal pseudo-periodicity in seven rows of 2, 8, 8, 18, 18, 32, 32 members is triggered by the low energy of and large gap above the 1s andnsp valence shells (2 ≤ n ≤ 6 !). The pseudo-periodicity, in particular the wavy variation of the elemental properties in the four longer rows, is due to the different behaviors of the s and p vs. d and f pairs of atomic valence shells along the ordered array of elements. The so-called secondary or vertical periodicity is related to pseudo-periodic changes of the atomic core shells. The Periodic Law of the naturally given System of Elements describes the trends of the many chemical properties displayedinsidethe Chemical Periodic Tables. While the general physical laws of quantum mechanics form a simple network, their application to the unlimited field of chemical materials under ambient ‘human’ conditions results in a complex and somewhat accidental structureinsidethe Table that fits to some more or less symmetricoutershape. Periodic Tables designed after some creative concept for the overall appearance are of interest in non-chemical fields of wisdom and art.


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