The Periodic Table of Elements

Hello Humans! Again, I've been doing a really bad job at posting every day. I will get better... by next week. I have Scuba Certification every night this week, except Friday, so it might be a little spotty until next week.

Today I thought that I would discuss probably my favorite thing in the entire world, besides my Lab Safety Goggles, and Lab Coat. You've probably guessed it, but without further ado, I present: The Periodic Table of Elements. It's literally my best friend, besides Riley, my doggie. Yes family, the Periodic Table just might be ranked higher on my friend list, because I literally stare at it for multiple hours a day, studying its trends and memorizing it's elements, so I can do Chemistry even faster than I can now. But seriously, the Period Table of Elements is so amazing. Mendeleev from the 18 and 19 hundreds is the scientist that put it together. He used the number of protons in an element, or the one trait of an element that defines it and always will stay the same, otherwise it's a totally different element, to arrange this magnificent table. He even also saw that there were gaps, because in the 18 and 19 hundreds, they had not discovered all of the elements. Mendeleev saw that there were also many trends and similarities between groups (columns) when put into rows by electron orbitals. The cool part, is that Mendeleev left the gaps where the theoretical elements would one day fill, and even predicted many properties of these missing elements, that helped to discover them and turned out to be true once discovered.

These trends is what makes the Periodic Table so incredible. For example, when you ignore the Noble Gasses, because they're dumb and don't react, you get Fluorine as the most electronegative element, with electronegativity decreasing to the left and down the periodic table, making Francium the element with the least electronegativity. And that's not the end of it. This same trends holds true to Atomic Radius, with the smallest atom being Helium and the biggest being Francium. Part of this reason is because of the Z-Effective, but we won't go into detail because it's difficult to explain to non-scientists. I still don't know how my Professor made it make sense in my brain. Bless that man. Other trends include increasing Ionization Energy and Electron Affinity, which increase as you approach Fluorine from Francium, just like all the other trends. Ionization Energy is the energy needed to make into ions, which makes sense because Fluorine is the most electronegative element which makes it want to hold onto electrons, making ionization require more energy. Electron Affinity is the energy spent when you add an electron to an element. This makes sense, because it's easier to add electrons to bigger elements, because they already have so many, that they hardly notice the change, where as Fluorine, being the smallest atom outside the Noble Gasses, would notice an electron being added, and it would require more energy to overcome the repelling forces from the other electrons, which are closer together.

Other trends are from the groups that the elements are put in. starting from the left, working to the right, we have the Alkali metals, the Alkaline Earth Metals, then the Transition Metals with Lanthanides and Anthanides stuck in the middle, then to the Poor Metals, Metalloids, Non-Metals, Halogens, which is my favorite group, and then last, and definitely the least, Noble Gasses. We'll start with the Alkali metals, which react very aggressively with water, and also the Halogens. They form a 1+ charge when ionized and when bonding. And oh boy, do they want to get ride of that extra electron to get a neutral charge. Alkaline Earth Metals come next, and have a 2+ charge when bonding, for the same reason of the Alkali Metals. Next come the Lanthanides and Actinides, which are mostly synthetic and too big to do anything with, as most of them are radioactive and will go under radioactive decay seconds after made in the lab. Transition Metals, as my General Chemistry Professor put it, "are screwed up," because they form multiple ions when bonded. They also make metallic bonds, which are, as my Physics Professor put it, "Communist, but for electrons." They all share all of their electrons, and that's all I know about metallic bonds, but this makes electron transfer, or electricity work very well in the Transition Metals. Then we come to the Poor Metals, which have metallic properties, but they aren't as strong as the Transition Metals. This is where Aluminum lies, making it a good metal for home-use, because it's a metal that won't kill you if an electric current is carried through it. Then the Metalloids, which have some metallic properties, but also some non-metal properties. This is where many messed up Elements lie, such as my 7th Grade Science teacher's favorite element, Boron lies. Poor Boron. It can hardly make 3 bonds, even though it wants 5 to have full orbitals. Then we have the non-metals, or the stuff that makes up the majority of living things. You would be dead if it weren't for these things. Or you would just be a robot, which would be pretty cool. This is where Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur, and Phosphorus lie, or the most heard of elements. The Halogens are my favorite group, because they're just a bunch of all-around good elements. Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine all make a 1- charge when bonding, and are pretty electronegative, meaning that they like to react, making Chemistry much cooler to non-scientists. They also make the strongest of acids, which is good to know when you want to hurt your enemies. But you didn't hear it from me ;). Then to the Noble Gasses, which could really just be cut off the Periodic Table because they are so lame and dumb and don't really react. The only cool one is Xenon, because it can make 6 bonds because it's a big molecule. But other than that, they're lame. Like so lame that we maybe spend one minute on them in Chemistry, and then ignore them the rest of the time, unless you want to make a Neon Light sign.

And that concludes my fan-girting of my best friend: The Periodic Table of Elements. Now, here's an awesome song that I found about the Periodic Table:

"There's hydrogen and helium, then lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon everywhere, nitrogen all through the air with oxygen so you can breath, and fluorine for your pretty teeth, neon to light up the signs, sodium for salty time. Magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, then sulfur, chlorine, and argon. Potassium, and calcium so you'll grow strong. Scandium, titanium, vanadium, and chromium, and manganese. This is the Periodic Table, Noble Gas is stable. Halogens and Alkali react aggressively. Each period will see new outer shells, electrons are added moving to the right. Iron is the twenty-sixth, then cobalt nickel points again, copper, zinc, gallium, germanium and arsenic, selenium, and bromine, while krypton helps light up your room. Rubidium, strontium, then yttrium, zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, technetium, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, silver ware, then cadmium, indium, tin can, antimony, then tellurium, and iodine, and xenon, and then cesium. Barium is 56 and this is where the table splits. Where Lanthanides have just begun: Lanthanum, cerium, and praseodymium, neodymium next to promethium, then 62 samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium. Hafnium, tantalum, tungsten, then we're onto rhenium, osmium, and iridium, platinum, gold to make you rich till you grow old, mercury to tell you when it's really cold. Thallium, lead, then bismuth for your tummy, Polonium, astatine will not be yummy. Radon, francium will last a little time, Radium, then Actinides at eighty-nine. This is the Periodic Table, Noble Gas is stable, Halogens and Alkalis react aggressively. Each period will see new outer shells, electrons are added moving to the right. Actinium, thorium, praseodymium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium, bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, damstadium, roentgenium, copernicium, nihonium, flerovium, moscovium, livermorium, tennessine, oganesson, and then we're done.

Hopefully you will gain a better appreciation of this amazing organization of elements. What's sad is most of us just use it as a decoration. We should all start using it in our daily lives, learning from it. Not just pinning it up on our wall because it looks cool. Respect the Table. Stay wild, flower child.