Chapter 3

Chapter 3 

Summary- "The Galápagos of the Periodic Table" explains the origin and creation of the periodic table in a series of anecdotes about various scientists who contributed to it. Kean first tells of Robert Bunsen, immortalized by the Bunsen burner, and his love for explosions, which he focused his work on after being half-blinded by arsenic. He develops the spectroscope, which uses light to help identify elements when they are heated to high temperatures. That went hand in hand with his creation a valve that adjusts the oxygen flow on a primitive gas burner to make it more efficient.
      Kean then moves on to talking about Dmitri Mendeleev, one of six men who individually created their own periodic tables. He ends up sharing a Davy Medal with another man named Julius Lothar Meyer for discovering what was called "periodic law". Mendeleev uses his table to begin predicting future elements and their traits, which turns out to be fairly accurate. However, he did not come up with names for the undiscovered elements and simply added the prefix eka- to preexisting elements. This would lead to a later dispute with Paul Emile François Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who discovered eka-aluminum and named it Gallium.
      The author also talks about the Lanthanides, a group of elements that are "quarantined" to the bottom of the periodic table. Most of these elements were found in the Swedish city of Ytterby. This has led to many of them being named after the city. Because of metal atoms' tendency to stay close together even when they move, a large amount of Lanthanides present beneath Ytterby. It's proximity to a fault line helped expose the Lanhanides for mining. Seven different elements were discovered there, six of which were Medeleev's missing Lanthanides.

Reflection- I liked that this chapter was mostly told as a series of anecdotes that provided a good backstory to many of the advancements shown. The author makes a point to give credit where it is due and explain why certain people deserve or don't deserve complete credit for something. I didnot like that, again, there was no spoon, much less one that disappeared. I also did not like that the exact origin of the word "Lanthanide" wasn't explained, it would be nice to know that to gain more insight on the subject.
      I learned that different people frequently come up with the same or similar ideas. I also learned that even an incomplete periodic table can give hints as to the properties of surrounding elements. Not only that, but also that chemistry is key to the economy of various societies, specifically in the manufacturing of various materials. If I had a bae to tell something to, I would tell them that many scientists like Mendeleev are praised for correct predictions, while incorrect predictions such as that of the existence of an element in the sun called Coronium, are overlooked almost entirely.