For the science-inclined, there is something very sexy about the periodic table and how, by a simple accounting of protons in atomic nuclei, its neat rows and columns reveal the peculiar behaviors of elements—the irreducible components of our world. Anyone who has taken time to ponder the periodic table has his or her favorites, whether it’s based on their explosive properties (potassium), their illustrious namesakes (curium, named after the Curies), or their silly abbreviations (Uup, Uuh).
An amazing team at the University of Nottingham has been sharing its love of the periodic table by making short Youtube videos of all 118 elements, from helium to ununoctium. The team goes to great lengths to showcase the elements, including handling vials of highly toxic arsenic and traveling to frosty Ytterby, Sweden (the birthplace of yttrium, ytterbium, terbium, and erbium). Check out the entire Periodic Table of Videos.
Their latest video is called “What Element Would You Like for Christmas?” in which they pose that question to researchers, all of whom seem to have a ready answer. One researcher selects neodymium, for its Christmas-y colors; more than one picks platinum, the most expensive element. What would you pick?
The Nottingham researchers aren’t the only ones obsessive about the periodic table. This guy even got it tattooed in his arm. Theodore Gray has spent the last five years collecting and photographing every single element. You can even purchase posters of his work. In his office, Gray stores his precious specimens in a literal Periodic Table, a wooden four-legged table with 118 cubbies.
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Image: flickr / Tator1982
December 15th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
It’s funny how someone can mention protons and nuclei and then in the same sentence refer to elements as “irreducible components”.
It’s also pretty silly to call platinum “the most expensive element” when virtually every element below it on the periodic table is far rarer and more costly.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
when virtually every element below it on the periodic table is far rarer and more costly.
Oh,really, let’s see the first 5 elemnets after Platinum: they are gold, Mercury,Thallium, Lead and bismuth, none of them are more expansive then Platinum. Rhodium was priced $6200 per ounce and sometimes considered as the most expansive metal, it is before Platinum in the periodic table.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:51 am
My 12 year old daughter just asked for a Periodic Table of Elements poster and book for Festivus. I can’t help but oblige! She is quite the little scientist, and daddy is soooo proud!
December 16th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Thanks, Jalopy. You have both failed to undermine my point and provided concrete substance for it.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
jdporter,if you want show that Platinum is not the most expansive element, one example is enough (e.g. Rh, if you knew that),but the statement” virtually every element below it on the periodic table is far rarer and more costly.” is clearly wrong. It is pretty silly trying to prove someone was wrong by using a wrong augument.
Actually, saying one element is more expansive than the other can not be a well defined statement. for example, how expansive the element C is depends on if it in a diamond or in graphite. By saying that I am not trying to
depreciate the above article, which shows that people are doing some interesting things about the periodic table, and was not trying to teach particle physics there. But anyway, the elements are the irreducible components of our world in the sense that one can not make a diamond with 6.02*10^23 plus 0.5 Carbons.