Monday, February 20, 2006

Periodic Table table

This is great: a real periodic table. Everyone of a certain age who watched Cosmos probably dreamed of doing the same exact thing. When I was a kid obsessed with chemistry I emulated Sir Humphry Davy, who isolated a number of elements including all the alkali earth metals for the first time. Davy didn't do bromine, but it was probably my favorite isolation. I ran the output of several 9 volt batteries connected in series through two carbon rods into a solution of potassium bromide. A dense, orange-red-brown liquid appeared at one of the terminals and flowed down to the bottom of the beaker. It stunk of halogen and something poisonous. Truly, it is named appropriately: bromos (βρωμος) meaning "stench" from Greek. I put the beaker on my windowsill and after a few days converted it into hydrobromic acid.

http://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/

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