2019 is the Year of the Periodic Table. Where would chemistry be without Dmitri Mendeleev’s structure–activity relationship? The International Year citation by UNESCO commemorates the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (PT) as one of the most important and influential achievements in modern science. The Periodic Table is important in chemistry, physics, and biology and a host of engineering disciplines. For example, The PT was a road map that led to the discovery of most of the elements, since the properties of elements were predicable before they were eventually isolated and identified. The PT also supports the tag line of the American Chemical Society: “Chemistry, the Central Science.”
Hugh Aldersey-Williams has authored a fascinating book reporting on the development of the Periodic Table when there were more holes than knowns.1 Early scientists had to deal with laborious purification schemes involving hundreds of successive fractional recrystallizations. A section near the end describes the search in Uppsala, Sweden, where scientists discovered several elements and built an empire based upon a blow pipe. Skilled prospectors and plant operators were able to relate the color of the flame to the composition of the metal. Thus, Swedish steel was once world renowned for its strength and beauty.
Along the way, the Swedes developed the mobile analytical laboratory, where they took the lab, including blow pipes, to the mine to follow colored veins with different composition.
Another example of author’s attention to detail is the description of the burial mound of the first emperor of China (Qin Shi Huang) located on the outskirts of Xi’an in central China. The burial mound is about a kilometer from the excavation site of the Terracotta Army. The mound is believed to have a large-scale model of his empire with metallic mercury pumped through the 100 river channels of the empire. This is a lot of mercury. Even today, excavation of the tomb is not progressing due to environmental concerns. On my visit there, our guide pointed out that the overburden is rich in arsenic as well.
I emphatically recommend Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc as a gift for any scientist. Our training provides numerous touch points where the book will trigger enriching flashbacks to formal education. However, there are numerous vignettes that are a current topic in our decade. For example, the rare earths are essential ingredients of strong permanent magnets and cell phones. The Periodic Table is essential to chemistry. However, I’m struggling with the structure of subatomic particles. I’ve not seen a comparable table for particle physics, but I suspect that it will come with time.
Reference
- Aldersey-Williams, H. Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc. HarperCollins Publishers: New York, NY, 2011; ISBN 978-0-06-182472-2
Robert L. Stevenson, Ph.D., is Editor Emeritus, American Laboratory/Labcompare; e-mail: [email protected]
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