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Table manners

Nature Chemistry volume 1, pages 97–98 (2009)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 June 2009

This article has been updated

There are many different versions of the periodic table, but one among them reigns supreme. Michelle Francl ponders on why chemists put elements in boxes.

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Figure 1: Benfey's spiral periodic table.
Figure 2: Scerri's periodic table.

Change history

  • 05 May 2009

    In Fig. 1 of the version of this Thesis originally published, the element directly to the left of Bk was mistakenly written as Th, whereas it should have been Tb. This has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions, along with a typing error in 'Transition'.

References

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  4. The Alexander Arrangement of the Elements; available at <http://www.scs-intl.com/alexander.htm>.

  5. Bradley, J.-C. Useful Chemistry <http://usefulchem.blogspot.com/2007/10/3d-periodic-table-in-second-life.html>.

  6. The Chemical Galaxy — A New Vision of the Periodic Table of the Elements; available at <http://www.chemicalgalaxy.co.uk/index.html>.

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  9. Scerri, E. R. PhilSci Archive <http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003095/> (December 2006).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michelle Francl is in the Department of Chemistry at Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 19010–2899, USA. mfrancl@brynmawr.edu,

    Michelle Francl

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  1. Michelle Francl
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Francl, M. Table manners. Nature Chem 1, 97–98 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.183

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.183

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