Quote the Raven, Livermore

Jill sent me this article yesterday announcing two new elements to the periodic table, Livermorium and Flerovium.

I have a love affair with the periodic table.  It combines three of my favorite things -- chemistry, organization, and some trivial thing to memorize that no one will ever ask you to recite.  Out of all of science, I love the periodic table the best.  The fact that elements with the same number of valence electrons line up in columns together and all have similar characteristics to each other baffles and excites me.  That Dmitri Mendeleev was able to predict the characteristics of undiscovered elements down to their precise atomic masses impresses the crap out of me.  I'm not kidding.  I don't have a lot of books at school with me, but one of them is The Disappearing Spoon, a book Jill gave me about how every element on the periodic table was discovered.  It's awesome!

Ok, I'll continue this geek-fest with a couple of neat elements and chemistry facts.

Did you know that the first column (family) of elements on the periodic table, the alkali metals, all explode in water?  You can see a video here: Periodic Table of Videos

Did you know that table salt (sodium chloride) is made of an explosive metal and a poisonous gas used in chemical warfare?

Sodium metal

Sodium reacting with water

Chlorine gas

Did you know that there are only two liquids on the periodic table -- mercury and bromine?  In fact, mercury was originally named hydragyrum (symbol Hg; Latin for "liquid" and "silver").

Mercury droplets ball up and join back together

Bromine is a dark red liquid that readily evaporates into poisonous fumes

Did you know that all of the last family of elements, the noble gases, are used to make "neon" lights?

The noble gases and the color "neon" signs they make

Ok, that's all the geeky element stuff I have for the day.  Congrats livermorium and flerovium, and welcome to the family!