World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews • Hacker News Board

Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews

#21

Post by quietbritishjim » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 10:50 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #18

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #14

The 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…

> Have a look at the heading under "Gruppe." It's the formula of the element's oxide.

According to the Periodic Videos video (linked from another comment), the reason those are there is to justify splitting the list of elements into rows in those particular places. The reasoning today is to do with eletron shells (I'm not a chemist but I presume that electron shells are also the root cause of those formulae) but at the time periodic table was created electrons hadn't yet been discovered!

Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews

#22

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

romwell wrote: post #20

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #14

The 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".…

>What's the value of museums? Of history? //

To devalue my comment in this way is not at all fair, that is not at all what I asked.

If you have a picture of the poster then I can see exactly what students at the time had, even that amount of detail is largely superfluous to any benefit - beyond mere curiosity - that I (or seemingly anyone) can derive from it.

As a society, it strikes me we should get over clinging to stuff just because it's old. Rather than preserve a not-especially-interesting artefact for posterity; record it, report the detail of it; then leave it in private hands. Use public money for now; University money for current educational needs.

Your last para at least approaches the question. But, (and I've done this) the experience of playing an 80s game on an emulator is largely the same, close enough to the experience that you can learn anything implicit in the experience itself IMO.

But, this is quite different, that artefact isn't going to be put up in a lecture hall of the C17th, if anything a facsimile will ... at which point the artefact, despite your protestations, still appears to have a intrinsic value approaching zero.

Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews

#23

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Jan 29, 2019, 11:04 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #16

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #14

The 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 c…

I too am fascinated by artefacts. Neil MacGregor's "A History of the World in 100 Objects" is a favourite book of mine, for example (and I have a physical copy!).

But, here's the rub, once analysed, understood, etc., (which for a simple image we can do readily; we already knew about the producer, the printers, the paper and ink types, the manner of production, the information held on the page is not novel AFAICT), what real value beyond that of any rare trinket does it have.

We grow out of bringing home every stick or stone, as children wish to.

It seems like magical thinking to imagine the logical 'soul' of the artefact cannot be extracted.

Re: World's oldest periodic table chart found in St. Andrews

#24

Post by apo » Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 4:10 AM UTC

quietbritishjim wrote: post #21

apo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Have a look at the heading under "Gruppe." It's the formula of the element's oxide. According to the Periodic Videos video (linked from another comment), the reason those are there is to justify splitting the list of elements into rows in those particular places. The reasoning today is to do with eletron shells (I'm not a chemist but I presume that electron shells are also the root cause of those formulae) but at t…

You are right (slaps forehead), and I was not thinking about the historical context.

The earliest tables were based on "valence", or the ratio with which an element tended to combine with other elements in compounds. Two of the most consistent and easily obtained compounds are those of hydrogen and oxygen, which nearly always combine with other "monovalent" elements in ratios of 1 and 2, respectively.

When a new element was discovered, the ratios with which it formed oxides and hydrides could be determined, and this would allow its placement on the table.

A student from the late 1800s would only be able to think in terms of equivalents, not electrons and their orbitals - as you point out. The inclusion of hydride and oxide formula templates would have been an integral part of using the table.