What follows is an effort to present a brief history of the development of chemical periodic charts in a way that is both enjoyable and instructive about the material world.
This project originated as an outgrowth of a workshop
at the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry in July
1991. The workshop was supported by Henkel Corporation,
Monsanto Company, and Union Carbide Corporation. The author of
this site used HyperStudio® to create a series of hypermedia
stacks
using an Apple IIgs computer. The final version
(1.2) was completed December 27, 1992. Those stacks have been
translated to HTML for the following web pages and the content
considerably expanded.
Let your curiosity lead you:
Click upon links...
.... the time line (above) to move rapidly,
....the curled page corners (below) to
advance, or review the past,
....or the colored underlined
links to follow that topic.
Early chemists and alchemists lived in a different time, with different language, ideas, and culture. We can substitute our words, and explain a few of their ideas. But it is very difficult to understand their culture.
Be careful not to judge their ideas foolish in the light of our culture, while in fact our ideas would look foolish and overly complicated to them. While difficult, try to consider their ideas in terms of their knowledge, for it was in that light they were proposed, and defended.
Keep a record of
....your insights,
....answers (& the questions)
....your progress.
What you want to remember, write
down!
(A reminder from an old school
teacher)
While the author believes it paramount to preserve historical accuracy, there is a risk in condensing history that unintentional errors occur. If any error is found, please use the e-mail link found at the bottom of every screen to propose a correction.
A History of Science George Sarton
The Historical Background of Chemistry Henry
M. Leicester
Medieval and Early Modern Science A. C.
Crombie
Through Alchemy to Chemistry John Read
Graphic Representations of the Periodic System During One Hundred
Years Edward Mazurs
Discovery of the Elements Mary Elvira Weeks
The Periodic System of Chemical Elements J.
W. van Spronsen
Radiochemistry and the Discovery of Isotopes Gerald Holton, editor
AMBIX: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy &
Chemistry July 1980
Lectures on Historical Development of the Periodic Law Bill Jensen
Bulletin for the History of Chemistry Bill
Jensen, Editor
Classical Chemical Periodicity Dreyfus 1984
Elements of Chemistry Antoine Lavoisier
Sketch of a Course of Chemical Philosophy Stanislao Cannizzaro
On the discovery of the Periodic Law... John
Newlands
The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements (Faraday Lecture
6/4/1859) Mendeleeff
General Chemistry Darrell Ebbing
Handbook of Chemistry & Physics Chemical
Rubber Co.
↑ | Greeks | alchemy | Lavoisier | Dalton | Berzelius | molecules | spectra | electron | radiation | Bohr | isotopes | synthesis |
to site menu | Discovery and Naming of Chemical Elements |
chemistry | physics | |||||||||
page created 19 March 2002 latest revision 10 October 2009 |
by D Trapp |