While playing a round of Game of Nerds here, I came across questions on chemistry which reminded me how the Periodic Table has been very important to me when I was still in college. For those who don't know much about me, I obtained a BS degree in Chemistry at the University of the Philippines. That was almost six years ago. My career in chemistry took me to a research division in the best hospital here in the Philippines, St. Luke's Medical Center. And I have been dabbling ever since in bioanalytical tests development and drug discovery researches.
In the spirit of celebrating 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry, allow me to give a blog tribute to a chemist's tool which has changed several times but has endured through all the changes. I am of course talking about the humble Periodic Table of Elements.
My first encounter with the Periodic Table of Element was uneventful and uninteresting. The first illustration of this table that I encountered was a very shabby one. It's one of those posters high school students pass to their lower class men after surviving High School Chemistry. Most of us in the Philippines, this is how we met our first Periodic Table of Elements. If you are lucky, or picky, your mom will give you money to buy a new one. So the first one I had was passed on to me by my older sister, who is now working as a nurse. It probably served her well cause there were a lot of scribbles on it.
Most likely, this picture is a good representation of how Periodic Tables are usually illustrated. But I have scoured the web and searched for the coolest Periodic Table of Element. This collection of links to the Pictures of Periodic Tables will show you how Art can truly make Chemistry more interesting and cool.
Since Chemistry is a science that deals with matters at atomic levels, students often have difficulty imagining things. Hence, the use of visuals in science has been encouraged throughout time. While Periodic Tables usually contain the following content per cell: Symbol of the Element, Atomic Mass, Atomic Weight and some place the Group Numbers; illustrators of Periodic Tables have caught on and have added pictures which students can associate with the elements.
One such fine example is this. The illustration was featured in this blog. I'm not sure how students will differentiate among the metallic elements since most look gray with shapes that look the same. But this illustration gives the student and idea of the properties of the elements based on the illustration. Elements that naturally occur as gases can be easily grouped from those which are metallic.
Even RSC caught up on this too. The Royal Society of Chemistry has been around for years and is the biggest organisation in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. They have gone further by incorporating technology into the illustration. By clicking on one element, a window pops on the screen and shows information related to the element one clicked. Check their version of a cool periodic table. If you choose to click on the illustration for Cesium (Cs), this page will pop on your screen and soon you will know that the name Cesium was derived from the Latin word caesius meaning 'sky blue'.
An even more ambitious version of a periodic table has been posted online by Chemists from the University of Nottingham. The Chemists there, compiled videos of experiments which uses the elements in the periodic tables and have created a Periodic Table with links to this videos. Check out this video periodic table here.
Another one features a table with cells drawn with Final Fantasy Characters. It was first featured here in Geekologie when a reader named Rafi submitted the artwork. It's bordering on cheesy but for those who play Final Fantasy and the younger generation visualization and association is the key to memorizing the Periodic Table. The characters that were illustrated in the cells were drawn from Final Fantasy I to XIII. For those who are not familiar with the game, an online guide has been created for you here.
If you haven't seen enough of examples of cool and colorful Periodic Tables of Element. Simply key-in the Google search phrase "cool periodic table of elements". There you will find pillowcases, bed sheets, comforters and table clothes with the periodic tables on them. Some are really nasty cool.
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