In 1869 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published his periodic table of elements, the most comprehensive catalog of the building blocks of our world at the time, and one which we still use. The reason his table was so revolutionary was that Mendeleev left gaps in the table where he believed undiscovered elements lay (and, thanks to his model, he was even able to predict the properties of said unknown elements). Another reason was his decision to divide the table along the lines of chemical families, rather than just according to atomic weight.
If you have ever studied chemistry, you’ve probably seen Mendeleev’s table or were forced to memorize it. But what lies behind all of those letters?
Thanks to a magnificent project by the University of Nottingham and TED-Ed dubbed “Periodic Videos”, you can learn exactly that, by clicking each individual element on this interactive periodic table of elements, which will open a short video lecture about the element, including fascinating experiments showing the various interactions the element has, its properties and more.
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