The periodic table has become an icon of science. Its rows and columns provide a tidy way of showcasing the elements — the ingredients that make up the universe. It seems obvious today, but it wasn’t ...

Eric Scerri is a historian and philosopher of chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA. Such has been the scientific and cultural impact of Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic ...

When Dimitri Mendeleev published the first periodic table 150 years ago, only about half as many elements were known as today. Over the ensuing decades, researchers have added new names to the chart, ...

The periodic table is one of those classic images that you find in many science labs and classrooms. It’s an image almost everyone has seen at some time in their life. Who can forget the periodic ...

One hundred fifty years after Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published his system for neatly arranging the elements, the periodic table it gave birth to hangs in every chemistry classroom in the ...

GALLIUM IS an unusual element. It is a light, silvery metal, similar to aluminium. But unlike aluminium, if you hit it with a hammer it shatters like glass. It melts at about 30°C—in your hand, or ...