The Disappearing Spoon Summary
Veronica Sanchez
Chemistry
9/3/14
The Disappearing Spoon Summary In the beginning of the first chapter Sam Kean shows the periodic table without the elements. The periodic table has 18 columns, 7 rows and 2 extra rows hovering on the bottom. There are 112 elements with more pending. All of these elements are placed specifically, and cannot be moved or else the whole structure would collapse. Where the elements are determine almost everything scientifically important about it. Noble gases are located on the 18th column. Noble gases are different than other elements, because they do not react with other substances. An example of a noble gas is helium. Helium has the exact number of electrons it needs,
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Mendeleev did not create it alone. Six other scientists built a periodic table independently, and all of them built on the works of earlier scientists. Mendeleev grouped elements into small sets and then put them into a periodic system. Many other chemists were working on this at the time, and many came to the same conclusion. One of those men were John Newlands. In 1865, Newlands went to the Chemical Society of London to present his own model of the periodic table. At that time nobody knew of the noble gases so the top rows of his table contained only 7 units. He compared the 7 units to the do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do of the musical scale. The Chemical Society of London did not find the comparison amusing, and ridiculed Newlands. Another scientist who came up with the conclusion of the periodic table was Julius Lothar Meyer. Meyer was one of the serious rivals of Mendeleev. Meyer published his table practically at the same time as Mendeleev. They both got credit for co-discovering the periodic table in 1882 when they won the Davy medal. There are many reasons why Mendeleev stood out from Meyer. Mendeleev didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t see, such as atoms and electrons. Mendeleev decided that an elements defining character was its atomic weight. He spent his whole life dedicated to chemistry, and knew how the elements reacted, felt, and smelt. Mendeleev revised his table many times, and left gaps in his table for the new elements that would be found. Mendeleev also gave names, and a predicted weight to the elements that were not discovered, yet. He got some his predictions correct, and amazed everybody. Those are the reasons why Mendeleev stood out from Meyer, and the rest of the scientists at the