The Periodic Spiral
As I was reading NY Times Science section today in the bathroom (the only place I bother reading physical newspapers and magazines anymore) I came across a superb explanation of the Periodic Spiral. As a young nerd, I was fascinated with the periodic chart and – even though I didn’t like chemistry very much (I was a physics guy) – I spent hours staring at it. I could easily lose an entire day to the Shockwave version of the Periodic Spiral. Did you know that strontium has a molar mass of 87.62 and that Y (atomic number 39) is yttrium?
Actually, the chart of elements has more to do with physics than it has with chemistry. Although he boundary is often uncertain, chemistry deals with physical attributes of elements and their interactions (i.e. molecules), while physics deals with them at an atomic level, which the chart is all about.
Yes – but when I was in public high school in Dallas 20 years ago, we only ever looked at the periodic table in chemistry. Maybe things have improved in the last 20 years.
“Maybe things have improved in the last 20 years.”
I fear they have gotten worse, not better.
Funny Brad, it’s yours, Fred Wilson’s and Michael Parekh’s blogs on my crackberry, that I end up reading in the bathroom. Newspapers are basically out of my life