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The Periodic‐Table—A Universal Icon: Its Birth 150 Years Ago, and Its Popularization Through Literature Art and Music

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Authors:
Sason Shaik at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sason Shaik
Eduard Cremades at University of Barcelona
Eduard Cremades
Santiago Alvarez at University of Barcelona
Santiago Alvarez
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This Essay projects the spark of genius of Mendeleev, whose efforts led to the effective formulation of the periodic table, which has placed the entire world of chemical matter on a palm. The periodic table gave rise to a central paradigm, which did for chemistry what Newton had done for physics and Darwin for biology. Subsequently the Essay recounts the popularization of the Periodic Table through literature by Primo Levi, Oliver Sacks and others, and through music and art by composers and artists, such as Jerry Feldman, the King Crimson band, Tom Lehrer, and George Brecht, Blair Bradshaw, Eugènia Balcells, etc.
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German Edition:DOI:10.1002/ange.201904584
PeriodicSystem International Edition:DOI:10.1002/anie.201904584
The Periodic-Table—A Universal Icon:Its Birth
150 Years Ago,and Its Popularization Through
Literature Art and Music
Sason Shaik,* EduardCremades,* and Santiago Alvarez*
Keywords: history of chemistry ·Mendeleev ·
Oliver Sacks ·periodic table ·Primo Levi
In memory of Joel Bernstein
Abstract: This Essay projects the spark of genius of Mende-
leev,whose efforts led to the effective formulation of the
periodic table,whichhas placed the entire world of chemical
matter on apalm. The periodic table gave rise to acentral
paradigm, which did for chemistry what Newton had done for
physics and Darwin for biology.Subsequently the Essay
recounts the popularization of the Periodic Table through
literature by Primo Levi, Oliver Sacks and others,and through
music and art by composers and artists,such as Jerry Feldman,
the King Crimson band, TomLehrer,and George Brecht, Blair
Bradshaw,EugHnia Balcells,etc.
1. Introduction
Theheated debates of chemists during the 19th century
formed the background for MendeleevQsperiodic table.[1–3]
Figure 1shows the explosion of information on “chemical
elements” in the post-LavoisierQsera.[4] Thedefinition of
a“simple body” by Lavoisier[5a] provided the chemists with an
effective manner of discovering new elementary materials.
These were materials that could not be decomposed into
simpler ones within the technical means of agiven time.This
definition has led to the discovery of many elements,[6] and
suddenly there seemed to be too many… Thechemists feel
being cast out of Paradise:they start to yearn for the simple
world of 4-elements (air, earth, fire and water) and the
quintessence (protyle).[2b, 3c,5b] However,assoon as the
recognition sets in that this paradise is gone forever,the next
best is to find “orders and rules” in the information.
Amajor step towards order was the atomic hypothesis by
Dalton (1803).[5c] John Dalton (Figure 2a)argued that the
mass of matter is quantized as atomic particles.Hecreated
calculus for estimating atomic weights (AW), and he defined
molecular-chemical-identity in terms of atomic combinations.
Some chemists like Wurtz, Laurent, Gerhardt (Figure 2b),
etc.,accepted the atomic postulate.Others like the physicist
Ernst Mach, and the chemists Berthelot and Dumas (Fig-
ure 2c)rejected it.[7] DaltonQscalculus was imperfect and
generated different AW values for the same element. This
brought about too much confusion. So much so that Dumas
declared (in 1837) “If Iwere master Iwould efface the word
atom from science”.
Then came the Karlsruhe conference in 1860. This was the
1st symposium of chemistry.During the symposium, Canni-
zzaro (Figure 3a)used the Avogadro hypothesis [that equal
volumes of gases involve the same number of molecules,and
that “simple bodies” like hydrogen and oxygen involve union
of the same atoms][2a,5c,7] and generated aset of consistent AW
values based on ascale with H =1au. He defined the “mole”
and the volume of mole,aswell as valence;the latter as the
ratio of the AW to the combining weight (e.g., for oxygen
Figure 1. Aplot of the numberofelements discovered per year.
Adapted with permissionfrom ref. [4].
[*] Prof. S. Shaik
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,The Institute of Chemistry
Jerusalem 9190400 (Israel)
E-mail:sason.shaik@gmail.com
Prof. E. Cremades
Escola Isabel de Villena
Joan Mirk41–43, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat(Spain)
E-mail:eduard.cremades@gmail.com
Prof. S. Alvarez
Universitat de Barcelona,Departament de Qu&mica Inorg/nica
iOrg/nica and Institut de Qu&mica Telrica iComputacional
Mart&iFranquHs, 1–11, 08028 Barcelona (Spain)
E-mail:santiago.alvarez@qi.ub.es
The ORCID identificationnumber(s) for the author(s) of this article
can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201904584.
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