Why Are The Periodic Tables Important?

[bainbrig]

No, not a homework question! Just in a long and varied education and life I’ve never really understood the importance or relevance of The Tables.

So, a simple explanation please.

BillB

[-Talbot-]

ah... so, this where the intellectuals hang out.

Giving simple answers to simpletons.

[ToraToraTora]

I try and prevent that Talbot but as you can probably tell I get a bit of a kicking trying to preserve this section.

[Mamyalynne]

I've bookmarked this thread as at first reading I have already got a clearer idea of the table - I abandoned sciences quite early and maybe after reading the explanations a few more times I'll be better informed.


I tend only to refer to them now when they appear in a crossword clue for example.

Sorry for digressing.

[ToraToraTora]

I remember being totally blown away when I founs out that even the densest atom is 99.99% empty space. What we know as matter is almost entirely empty space. I still marvel at that.

[Peter Pedant]

erm sorry boys
The Geiger Marsden experiment - which caused a sensation
first showed that the atom was mainly er air

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger%E2%80%93Marsden_experiment

alpha particle at v thin gold foil mainly went straight thro
but some went back where they came ( those near the charged nucleus)

was completely incompatible with the plum pudding model
( atom as a plum pud with +ve and -ve particle dotted around) which was current ( pun intended!) at the time

this showed instead very highly charged small =ve centres.

Rutherford then postulated that the electrons whizzed around the positive nucleus - along with Bohr
( everyone else said no that cant be - we KNOW that if an electron moves in a circle then it MUST emit radiation ( and so lose energy)

Bohr later said - you have no idea - there was no one else working in this field - they all thought we HAD to be wrong.

[Mamyalynne]

So much is amazing, I don't think we always realised that (me I mean) when someone was trying to teach us.

[jim360]

I don't see the harm in answering questions, whatever the motivation may be for asking them. Either the questioner learns something, or others who would also have asked the question learn something -- and, quite often, even when answering you learn something.

On the other hand, snide comments of the sort this thread was full of advance nothing.

[ToraToraTora]

Pee Pee: "irst showed that the atom was mainly er air" - err no, you mean a vacuum I think.

[IJKLM]

PP, I hesitate to correct you, but the space between a nucleus and an electron is nowhere near big enough to accomodate a molecule of nitrogen, or oxygen.

TTT in this case is right - it's a vacuum, not, errr, air

[Peter Pedant]

// Giving simple answers to simpletons.//
um no a lot of the usual suspects had fun over engineering thermodynamics earlier on in the evening

I fell less in luuurve with the geiger model as one of the exercises was to estimate from the proportion of direct returns, how big the nucleus would be.
match head in a football field with the first electron at the boundary I think .....

[jno]

oh, was that what all the vanished answers were? The periodic tables haven't been part of my life either, so I'm grateful for the helpful explanations.

[Peter Pedant]

oh course I do for chrissakes - really !

[Mamyalynne]

If the removed answers were making fun then glad they've gone - I for one have never been afraid to admit not fully understanding something and asking for an explanation.

[webbo3]

because of pointless?

[bainbrig]

I’m starting to see a close analogy between the Tables and linguistics - where the creation of language ‘families’ helped see socio-cultural links and developments.

The chemistry might always elude me, but the Tables are less obscure. Thanks.

[Khandro]

Tom Lehrer had it all sorted out, but when this was made Darmstadtium was still to be discovered, but as it only exists momentarily and is then gone in a flash, let's ignore it.

[bainbrig]

Wish I’d seen the removed answers - just to discover how a straightforward question can be distorted when you run it through the filters of venom.