The Periodic Table

2019 again, is a year full of anniversaries. Most have to do with the end of World War I, but another date that should not be forgotten is the 150s anniversary of the Periodic Table (PT). The man who gave it to the world on this very day in 1869 is the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev who once had a dream about the arrangement of the then-known elements in a table. Already earlier n 1864, the German chemist Lothar Meyer had published a paper describing 28 elements classified by their valence. Subsequently, in my high school days, I learned about das periodisches System nach Mendelejew-Meyer.

Mendeleev correctly arranged the then-known electropositive alkalines (Na, K, Rb, Cs), alkaline earth metals (Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba), and the electronegative halogens (F, Cl, Br, I) in columns. With the later developed theory of atomic shells, we now understand why sodium with a lonely electron in its outer shell reacts so vigorously with chlorine, longing for an electron missing in its outer shell, forming one of the most stable chemical compounds, NaCl, i.e., salt.

The Periodic Table is the basis of all inorganic chemistry. To memorize the columns of elements with similar chemical properties in the correct order, Red Baron formed an artificial jingle word: HeLiBeBCNOF. In the starting column, the noble gases begin with Helium (He), and the last column contains the halogens starting with their most aggressive element, Fluorine (F).

Here is a children's version of the PT explaining the use and usefulness of the various elements in pictures.

People are crazy about the Periodic Table and (ab)use it for their purposes. On the Internet, I found the following versions over the years.

Apparently made by a proud Englishman.

There are wine ...

... and beer lovers

Learning the PT in the bathroom

Irrational nonsense ...

... and the table of renounce in German.

Here comes another picture gallery

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