THE PERIODIC TABLE

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THE PERIODIC TABLE 

To the uninitiated, it is just 118 numbered boxes,each with one or two letters skilfully arranged in a skewed style with stunning symmetry. At a fun-damental level, all of chemistry and a great deal of physics are contained in the table. The PeriodicTable is universally hailed as the Holy Grail of Sci-ence. It is symbolic of international mindedness and the zeitgeist of globality. It stands out as an edifice of epistemology and as a potent tool for teaching the cross-cutting concepts in the nature of Science.Out of the chaos and disorder caused by the confusion and indeterminacy of the diversity ofchemical elements, Mendeleev conceptualisedand curated a system of elements that reflectedtheir dialectical unity and genetic interrelation-ship. Periodicity and pattern created a paradigmshift in physical sciences.

                         Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS 

The development of the table took several years and involved scientists from different countries building upon the foundations of one another's work and ideas. The table enables a cruise through different geographies including villages, provinces, countries and even a continent.Thirty two elements carry such appellations as Europe,Germany, Poland, Russia, Cyprus, United States, Japan, etc.

There is a famed village by name Ytterby, on the Swedish island of Resaro, being the celebrated source of seven elements discovered. If you visit the village today, you might never realise this was the Galápagos of the table.

Blessed are those scientists who win the rich and rare Nobel Prizes and doubly blessed are those who win it twice. Thrice blessed are those scien- tists who have their names immortalised by ele- ments like Mendellevium, Einsteinium and Curium.

Infinitely blessed are those who have been hon- oured with the names of elements after them when they are alive. Oganessian is the privileged scien- tist for having the 118th element named after him.

TWO CULTURES 

The theory of Two Cultures was proposed by Sir C.P. Snow and it posits that the thought leaders of science and hu- manities are not on speaking terms. There was a suggestion that they are making faces at each other. The table has a veritable storehouse of culture and sociology in the history of the discovery of the elements. Legends and myths have a place here. About a dozen elements have their namesdirectly derived from legendary characters such as Titanium and Tantalum. A fine science story laced with historical and technical facts can be woven around the discovery of the artificial element Promethium.

The German belief system of folk stories is embedded in the table with the faith structure of miners. The table was discovered in an era when atomic structures and electron configurations were not known. Analytical techniques and equipment to isolate and purify elements were not available.Today we know that the arrangement of elements in the periodic table helps to predict their electron configurations in all their finesse.

A typical problem pertaining to the table is its limit. Row 7 has been completed. Is Oganesson is the full stop? Can we expect more synthetic elements? Is there an island of sta- bility or sea of instability? Science studies, scholars and so- ciologists have identified the problem of occurrence of mul- tiple independent discovery and the table has a substantial inventory of it. A discovery comes to light after sufficient critical mass has been built up, and thereafter the next step is taken contemporaneously in different places. The table allows the play of imagination and utility. It can be created in many avatars depending on the need and utility. An Element Clock created by a Japanese teacher is a good example.

SUSTAINABILITY 

Sustainability is the current overarching concern. This mind- set can be poignantly portrayed in a table of Endangered Elements. The Chemistry Innovation Knowledge Transfer Network of UK has created an ingenious version, where ev- ery element can be put to the sustainability test to forecast the scenarios of Limits to Growth.

The group of seventeen rare earth elements that power and drive modern high tech and hold out the promise of a green planet is a case study. When Japanese sea guards detained the captain of a Chinese boat near Senkaku is- lands in the disputed South China Sea, China made an el- emental response of denying supply of rare earth metals. Japan retracted and swiftly released the captured captain lest its economy should come to a calamitous collapse.

Today, large teams with several participants from different countries and cultures are working together in the search for more elements. A quick look at the dynamics of syn- thesis and discovery of elements will reveal that nuclear physicists played a crucial cooperative role in the process. Three mindsets discernible in the development of the table are the disciplined mindset signifying the depth of domain knowledge, the synthesising mindset of breadth of disci- plinary knowledge and the creating mindset of stretch of imagination.

The periodic table is already ubiquitous within the academic disciplines of chemistry, providing an extremely useful framework to classify, systematise and compare all the many different forms of chemical behaviour. The table has also found wide application in physics, biology, engineering and industry. Scientists and science commu- nicators across the world will be popularising the Peri- odic Table all through 2019. The IYPT-2019 was formally launched at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on January 29, 2019 by Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian, the only living scientist who has an element named after him. In India celebrations began since January 12 at the International Science Festival, Mumbai.

                              Modern Periodic Table 

The Periodic Table: It's More than Just Chemistry and Physics

It’s a chart of all the chemical building blocks of matter. To date, humans have observed 118, both natural and artificially made. Each of these building blocks, known as atomic elements, contains a positively charged core (known as the nucleus) that is (usually) surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged particles called electrons. Zooming in on the nucleus a little more, we find positively charged particles known as protons and neutral particles known as neutrons.

The one feature that defines an atomic element is its atomic number, that is, the number of protons it has in its nucleus. Hydrogen has one proton, so its atomic number is 1, and uranium has 92, so its atomic number is … 92. If there are an equal number of electrons and protons, the atom is electrically neutral. If there are fewer or more electrons than protons, the atom is electrically charged and known as an ion.

Each atom can have several different versions, known as isotopes, in which there are different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus. For example, hydrogen usually only has one proton and no neutrons, but an isotope known as deuterium or “heavy hydrogen” also contains one neutron.

The deuterium isotope helps create heavier elements inside stars, makes certain drugs more effective, and could be the key ingredient for making clean fusion energy. It was discovered in the 1930s at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, then known as the National Bureau of Standards), where it was identified by Harold Urey of Columbia University, who won a Nobel Prize for the feat.

So, already you can see this one isotope’s importance in astronomy, pharmaceuticals and energy. And, yet, despite its importance, it’s a rarity compared with ordinary hydrogen, the most abundant ingredient in water, most stars and the universe in general. It’s amazing how one element in the periodic table is found in so many different kinds of stuff in our world.

So, already you can see this one isotope’s importance in astronomy, pharmaceuticals and energy. And, yet, despite its importance, it’s a rarity comp

In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, created the first periodic table by arranging the atomic elements into columns and rows. Atomic elements in the same columns and rows have certain properties in common. For example, atoms in the rightmost column, known as the noble gases, may differ greatly in mass from light (helium) to heavy (such as radon), but what they have in common is that they don’t ordinarily participate in chemical reactions.

The genius of Mendeleev was that he left spaces for elements yet to be discovered, and in so doing he predicted their existence, such as gallium in 1875 and germanium in 1886. As you may have guessed, the latter was named after Germany (the home country of discoverer Clemens Winkler). As for the former, Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran named the element “gallia,” after Gaul, the Iron Age region that includes present-day France.

So, if you love history, literature and words, the periodic table is for you. Some elements are named after towns: Strontium comes from the Scottish village of Strontian, where the mineral containing the element was found. Some take their names from mythology. The element vanadium is named after the Norse goddess Vanadis. More recently discovered elements have tended to be named after real people, such as meitnerium (Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner was a co-discoverer of nuclear fission). Naming elements after places has also been trending. For instance, tennessine comes from the state of Tennessee, the home of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which performed key work to produce this particular element.