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Happy Birthday to the Elements, I guess?Today is the birthday of...



Happy Birthday to the Elements, I guess?

Today is the Birthday of the Periodic Table of the Elements, created by Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev, first published on this date on February 17, 1869 (old Russian calendar). While the word element has been around for a very long time and even had basically the same definition the entire time, it was not until the 18th century that the word attained its fullest scientific sense. Our word comes from the Latin word elementum meaning rudiments, first principles, basic constituents. A modern definition usually specifies the atomic nature: any of the fundamental substances that consist of atoms of only one kind and that singly or in combination constitute all matter.

Just before his execution at the hands of Robsepierre in the French Revolution, Antoine Lavoisier published his ‘Elements of Chemistry’, a list of 33 chemical elements. For the next fifty years scientists rushed ahead to discover and identify these ‘elements’. By 1869 there were 56 elements identified, when Mendeleev published the first ‘Periodic Table’ organizing the elements into groups and families based on the similarity of their properties. Despite personal problems, Mendeleev was stunningly successful with the periodic table-correctly predicting as yet to be discovered elements and their properties based on his understanding of periodicity. Today there are 118 known elements, of which 92 are naturally occurring here on Earth. Scientists differ on the details of the next elements to be discovered, but most agree that more will be.

Watch the video, then check out the extremely cool website by Michael Dayah. I highly recommend spending some time with both the video and ptable-the amount of data available is astonishing, and scrolling through the data sets to see how elements are related in dozens of different ways really helps illuminate the subject. Created in October 1997, but still very useful and very well done. Not many programs or websites with that kind of longevity! Click here if the video doesn’t redirect: www.ptable.com

Dictionary definition courtesy http://www.merriam-webster.com



This post first appeared on Kids Need Science, please read the originial post: here

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