And it's actually bears name of it's creator - Mendeleev.
World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
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Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#12> "Treatment to the chart included: brushing to remove loose surface dirt and debris, separating the chart from its heavy linen backing, washing the chart in de-ionised water adjusted to a neutral pH with calcium hydroxide to remove the soluble discolouration and some of the acidity, a ‘de-acidification’ treatment by immersion in a bath of magnesium hydrogen carbonate to deposit an alkaline reserve in the paper, and…
Using chemistry to save chemistry's history!!
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#13Anyone know what typeface is used in this table (or modern equivalent)?
Kapra Condensed shown here is very similar:
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#14The article claims:
>In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. //
Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value.
I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation?
There's a related issue, when paintings (eg old masters) are purchased by the public purse to "preserve them for the country" or similar. Do we really gain anything (in the general case) if an analysis of the methods and substances has been kept along with a digital facsimile?
It's lovely to keep old stuff, but claims of necessity always seem to be a bit of a stretch.
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#15The article claims: >In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. // Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation? There's a related issue, when paintings…
People have assigned a value to this because its the 'first', and as long as people value that, that's enough isn't it?
Why should Usain Bolt be held in any higher regard than the 2nd fastest man in the world? Who even is 2nd in the world? People care about the first, everything else pales.
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#16The article claims: >In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. // Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation? There's a related issue, when paintings…
I'm fascinated by real prehistoric artefacts like stone axe, etc even though those physical artefacts have probably no scientific value after having been analyzed, described, photographed, 3d modeled, etc. And we also do have museum of computer history with all that old hardware.
That old stuff anchors in spacetime the path of our civilization and bears witness to the chain of thought and actions that led us to the current place.
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#17The article claims: >In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. // Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation? There's a related issue, when paintings…
> But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation?
Maybe a little, but probably really only to someone doing specialized research on Chemistry education.
This find seems a lot like a hypothetical discovery of the "oldest surviving Parisian passenger bus map, dated 1952 [1]." It wouldn't be the oldest bus map, nor even the oldest bus map of Paris, nor would it tell you much about the Parisian bus system that you couldn't find from other sources.
[1] I'm aware there are likely older surviving maps, but I made this up to make a point.
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#18The article claims: >In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. // Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation? There's a related issue, when paintings…
Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to.
1. Have a look at the heading under "Gruppe." It's the formula of the element's oxide. That hasn't shown up on periodic tables for a long time. It implies that determining the oxide formula may have been tricky for students of the time. Today students are taught how to make any formula (not just oxides) given the group number of the component elements.
2. Mendeleev's name is explicitly mentioned. You also won't find that on any modern periodic tables.
3. The transition metals are not segregated but lumped into main groups. Today they're separated into ten groups of their own, but the rare earths and transuranium elements are kind of lumped together with no groups of their own.
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#19The article claims: >In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. // Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation? There's a related issue, when paintings…
Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. 1. Have a look at the heading under "Gruppe." It's the formula of the element's oxide. That hasn't shown up on periodic tables for a long time. It implies that determining the oxide formula may have been tricky for students of the time. Today students are taught how to make any formula (not just oxides) given the group number of the component elements. 2. Me…
GP's point is that this artifact doesn't introduce a new variant of periodic table that was unknown to historians. Hell, Wikipedia has had a virtually similar table listed in its history of the periodic table for close to 4 years now.
> 3. The transition metals are not segregated but lumped into main groups. Today they're separated into ten groups of their own, but the rare earths and transuranium elements are kind of lumped together with no groups of their own.
The only known f-block elements known at the time were lanthanum [1], cerium, thorium, uranium, and erbium. Plus didymium, which is actually a mixture of praseodymium and neodymium that was thought to be an element. On the base of atomic mass, there was clearly a large slug of missing elements, so the assumption was that when the d-block returns to hafnium, there must have been missing elements to fill in the expected rows.
The modern periodic table is centered essentially on electronic configuration. The standard table has the s-block on the left, the p-block on the right, the d-block in the middle, and the f-block below the table, vaguely indicated as appearing either immediately after the s-block or after the first element in the d-block. Elements are sorted into these blocks based on which orbital the last electron filters into, although by the time you hit the f-block, the nominal rule implied by the periodic table has lots of exceptions.
But this table predates the discovery of atomic orbital theory. It even predates the notion of atomic number--the elements are listed with their atomic mass. The group numbers that you see used to be common in chemistry, although often addended with A or B (where CAS said that the d-block groups were all suffixed with B and the others with A; and IUPAC said that the first half of columns were A and the second half were B).
[1] Sidestepping the entire debate here about whether lanthanum and actinium are d-block elements, or lutetium and lawrencium are.
Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews
#20The article claims: >In view of the table’s age and emerging uniqueness it was important for the teaching chart to be preserved for future generations. // Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value. I'm a hoarder, and I like curios - particularly scientific ones. But, is their really any need or specific benefit in its preservation? There's a related issue, when paintings…
>Does it tell us anything we didn't know, doesn't appear to. So what exactly is the value.
What's the value of museums? Of history?
This artifact allows you to place yourself in the shoes of a chemistry student 150 years ago. This is what they would have seen in the classroom. Not something like this, but exactly this.
History is often taught through dates and names; "King blah-blah conquered this land in year blah". But that's just biographies of governments. What's often missing is what the world view of a person living at the time was.
Artifacts like this -- and museums in general -- are a part of gives you the answer to this question.
To wit: there's nothing about DOS that you wouldn't be able to learn online, but starting DOOM on a 486 in the Living Computer Museum will give you an experience that you wouldn't get by just reading about it.