To the Babylonians, they were earth, sea,
sky and wind. To the ancient Greeks, they
were earth, water, air, fire and aether. To the
Chinese, they were fire, earth, metal, water
and wood.
Empedocles, the philosopher, called them
roots; the philosopher Plato renamed them
elements. And despite the ancient discovery
of physical elements such as platinum, tin
and zinc, the classical notion of the elements
held sway until 1661, when the philosopher
Robert Boyle redefined them as substances
that cannot be decomposed into simpler
substances — an idea that dominated for
another two centuries until the discovery of
subatomic particles.
In the 19th century, as a growing number of
elements were being discovered, scientists
began proposing a periodic table in which
elements were arranged in order of increasing
atomic weight, and by 1869, chemist Dmitri
Ivanovich Mendeleev had published the first
of a series of papers outlining a periodic table
of the elements similar to the one we have
today. More than 40 years later, physicist
Henry Moseley recognized that the atomic
number of the elements in the periodic table
was equal to the charge on the nucleus of
its atoms.
Today, if you flip open a chemistry textbook
or walk into a chemistry classroom, you’ll
most likely find a horizontal table of the
elements remarkably similar to Mendeleev’s.
But despite the ubiquity of his design, a quick
search on the Internet will yield a myriad of
variations, with ovals, triangles and spirals,
some in black and white and others in a
rainbow of colors.
And so it is that at Purdue University, we
present our own periodic table and a report
on the elements that our researchers have
worked with as of late — as well as a few
that have made their mark on history. As
Mendeleev once said, “I wish to establish
some sort of system not guided by chance
but by some sort of definite and exact
principle.” While he may not agree with
our reordering of things, it is in this spirit
of organizing our own endeavors that we
present to you our annual report.
