History periodic table

In 1934 Fermi decided to bombard uranium with neutrons in an attempt to produce transuranic elements, that is, elements beyond uranium, which is number 92 in the periodic table. He thought for a while that he had succeeded, since unstable atoms were produced that did not seem to correspond to any known radioactive isotope. I le was wrong in this conjecture, but the research itself would eventually turn out to be of momentous importance both for physics and for world history, and worthy of the 1938 Nobel Pri2e in Physics. 

Unlike some lovers of the periodic table, I am not somebody who played with chemicals or minerals at a young age. My attraction to the periodic table was more in the realm of ideas. It is not too surprising looking back now that I should have ended up with an interest in history and philosophy of chemistry.2... 

E. Barnes, On Mendeleev s Predictions Comment on Scerri and Worrall, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 36 801-812, 2005 S. Schindler, Use-novel predictions and Mendeleev s Periodic Table Response to Scerri and Worrall, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A, 39 265-269, 2008 D. Harker, On the Predilections for Predictions, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 59 429—453, 2008 E. R. Scerri, Response to Barnes Critique of Scerri and Worrall, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 36 813-816, 2005. 

What I hope to have added to the discussion has been a philosophical reflection on the nature of the concept of element and in particular an emphasis on elements in the sense of basic substances rather than just simple substances. The view of elements as basic substances, is one with a long history. The term is due to Fritz Paneth, the prominent twentieth century radio-chemist. This sense of the term element refers to the underlying reality that supports element-hood or is prior to the more familiar sense of an element as a simple substance. Elements as basic substances are said to have no properties as such although they act as the bearers of properties. I suppose one can think of it as a substratum for the elements. Moreover, as Paneth and before him Mendeleev among others stressed, it is elements as basic substances rather than as simple substances that are summarized by the periodic table of the elements. This notion can easily be appreciated when it is realized that carbon, for example, occurs in three main allotropes of diamond, graphite and buckminsterfullenes. But the element carbon, which takes its place in the periodic system, is none of these three simple substances but the more abstract concept of carbon as a basic substance. 

The direct focus of the present paper, however, is not this general issue, but rather a famous particular case from the history of science that has become embroiled in it. The episode involves Mendeleev and the prediction of the existence of hitherto unknown elements on the basis of his celebrated periodic table. According to an account that has widespread currency, Mendeleev s table was given little or no general credit by his contemporary scientists in virtue of its accommodation of the already known elements. What really told with Mendeleev s peers, according to this account, was the fact that gaps in the table were used as the basis of predictions of the existence of hitherto unrecognised elements, that turned out really to exist. So, for example, Isaac Asimov writes ... 

The closet precursor to Mendeleev s table in both chronological and philosophical toms was developed by Julius Lothar Meyer, a German chemist, in 1864. Although Meyer stressed physical rather than chemical properties, his table bears remarkable similarity to the one that Mendeleev would develop five years later. For a number of reasons, Meyer s prominence in tlte history books never matched Mendeleev s. There was an untimely delay in the publication of his most elaborate periodic table, and, perliaps more important, Meyer—unlike Mendeleev—hesitated to make predictions about unknown elements. 

This book contains key articles by Eric Sc erri, the leading authority on the history and philosophy of the periodic table of the elements and the author of a best-selling book on the subject. The articles explore a range of topics such as the historical evolution of the periodic system as well as its philosophical status and its relationship to modern quan um physics. This volume contains some in-depth research papers from journals in history and philosophy of science, as well as quantum chemistry. Other articles are from more accessible magazines like American Scientist. The author has also provided an extensive new introduction in orck rto integrate this work covering a pc riocl of two decades.This must-have publication is completely unique as there is nothing of this form currently available on the market. 

Krebs, Robert E. The history and use of our earth s chemical elements a reference guide. Westport (CT) Greenwood P, 1998. ix, 346p. ISBN 0-313-30123-9 A short history of chemistry — Atomic structure The periodic table of the chemical elements — Alkali metals and alkali earth metals - Transition elements metals to nonmetals — Metallics and metalloids - Metalloids and nonmetals — Halogens and noble gases - Lanthanide series (rare-earth elements) — Actinide, transuranic, and transactinide series... 

The explanatory system which dramatically combined the classification methods of natural history with the quantitative methods of physical laws was the periodic system worked out by Dmitri Mendeleev (and independently, although less successfully, by Meyer). What is the great tableau that is the periodic table Is it icon, index, or symbol It is not metaphor. Is it a model There is no chemical laboratory in the world where Mendeleev s table does not hang on the wall, despite the fact that the original version is well over one hundred years old. Its center remains untouched. Give a chemist a choice between the periodic table (fig. 4) and Schrodinger s equation. Which would she take ... 

This section started with the discovery of Soddy and Fajans on radioactive decay around 1910 and the relationship of radioactive decay to the periodic table. At this point in the history, we understand the periodic table and we understand the role of isotopes in the periodic table. We have not yet understood the structure of the modern Table, i.e. first row two elements, second row eight elements, etc. That understanding can be based on Bohr theory of the hydrogen atom originally developed in 1911 and is summarized in Bohr s famous article in Zeitschrift fur Physik (Bohr 1922). 

The discovery of the rare earth elements provide a long history of almost two hundred years of trial and error in the claims of element discovery starting before the time of Dalton s theory of the atom and determination of atomic weight values, Mendeleev s periodic table, the advent of optical spectroscopy, Bohr s theory of the electronic structure of atoms and Moseley s x-ray detection method for atomic number determination. The fact that the similarity in the chemical properties of the rare earth elements make them especially difficult to chemically isolate led to a situation where many mixtures of elements were being mistaken for elemental species. As a result, atomic weight values were not nearly as useful because the lack of separation meant that additional elements would still be present within an oxide and lead to inaccurate atomic weight values. Very pure rare earth samples did not become a reality until the mid twentieth century. 

If Sniadecki had not withdrawn his claim, he may have, eventually, been credited with the discovery of ruthenium. However, as history stands, Osann is credited with first finding ruthenium and Klaus for adequately identifying its properties to determine that it fit into the hole in the periodic table for element 44. 

The chemical and physical properties of Unq (or rutherfordium) are homologous with the element hafnium ( jHf), located just above it in group 4 (fVB) in the periodic table. It was first claimed to be produced artificially by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) located in Dubna, Russia. The Russian scientists used a cyclotron that smashed a target of plutonium-242 with very heavy ions of neon-22, resulting in the following reaction Pu-242 + jjjNe-22 —> jj, Unq-260 + 4 n-1 (alpha radiation). The Russians named Unq-260 kurcha-tovium (Ku-260) for the head of their center, Ivan Kurchatov. (See details in the next section, History. )... 

Western Oregon University A Brief History of the Periodic Table, http //www.wou.edu/las/ physics/ch4l2/prehist.htm (accessed October 9, 2005). 

The last chapter, which I have called an epilogue, is also somewhat different from the others. It is a condensed history of twentieth-century particle physics. The search for an understanding of the constituents of matter did not end with Bohr s explanation of the properties of the periodic table after all. On the contrary, the quest continued by being passed from the hands of the chemists into those of the physicists. Because I chose to discuss this material within the framework of a single chapter, I was forced to omit some of the details. However, I think it sufficiently summarizes the paths that the physicists followed once they took on the task of trying to determine what the universe was made of. 

Los Alamos National Laboratory Periodic Table of Elements. Available online. URL http //periodic.lanl.gov/. Accessed May 28, 2009. This table contains clickable elements that lead to a Web page describing the element s history, properties, sources, uses, and other information. 

WebElements The Periodic Table on the Web. Available online. URL http //www.webelements.com/. Accessed May 28, 2009. Comprehensive coverage of the elements on this site includes basic information, history of discovery, uses for the element, its common compounds, and much other chemical information. 

The book is designed to introduce fundamental knowledge in three areas the history of the atom, the periodic table and radioactivity. We will study the historical development of atomic structure theories, the tendencies of elements in periods and groups, and the types of emissions and uses of radioactivity. 

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