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494670 1 En Bookfrontmatter 1..7 Perspectives on the History of Chemistry Series Editor Seth C. Rasmussen, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA Commonly described as the “central science”, chemistry and the chemical arts have an extremely long history that is deeply intertwined with a wide variety of other historical subjects. Perspectives on the History of Chemistry is a book series that presents historical subjects covering all aspects of chemistry, alchemy, and chemical technology. Potential topics might include: • An updated account or review of an important historical topic of broad interest • Biographies of prominent scientists, alchemists, or chemical practitioners • Translations and/or analysis of foundational works in the development of chemical thought The series aims to provide volumes that advance the historical knowledge of chemistry and its practice, while also remaining accessible to both scientists and formal historians of science. Volumes should thus be of broad interest to the greater chemical community, while still retaining a high level of historical scholarship. All titles should be presented with the aim of reaching a wide audience consisting of scientists, chemists, chemist-historians, and science historians. All titles in the book series will be peer reviewed. Titles will be published as both printed books and as eBooks. Both solicited and unsolicited manuscripts are considered for publication in this series. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/16421 Carmen J. Giunta Á Vera V. Mainz Á Gregory S. Girolami Editors 150 Years of the Periodic Table A Commemorative Symposium 123 Editors Carmen J. Giunta Vera V. Mainz Department of Chemistry School of Chemical Sciences Le Moyne College University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Syracuse, NY, USA Urbana, IL, USA Gregory S. Girolami School of Chemical Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL, USA ISSN 2662-4591 ISSN 2662-4605 (electronic) Perspectives on the History of Chemistry ISBN 978-3-030-67909-5 ISBN 978-3-030-67910-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67910-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Contents 1 Editors’ Introduction ................................... 1 Carmen J. Giunta, Vera V. Mainz, and Gregory S. Girolami Part I Mendeleev and His Predecessors 2 Dmitri Mendeleev and the Periodic System: Philosophy, Periodicity, and Predictions............................... 13 Ann E. Robinson 3 The Trouble with Triads ................................. 35 William B. Jensen 4 Josiah Parsons Cooke, the Natural Philosophy of Sir John F. W. Herschel and the Rational Chemistry of the Elements .......... 43 Ronald Brashear and Gary Patterson 5 Vis Tellurique of Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de Chancourtois ..... 61 Carmen J. Giunta 6 Periodicity in Britain: The Periodic Tables of Odling and Newlands ......................................... 93 Carmen J. Giunta, Vera V. Mainz, and Julianna Poole-Sawyer 7 Gustavus Hinrichs and His Charts of the Elements ............ 133 Gregory S. Girolami 8 The Periodic Table of the Elements and Lothar Meyer ......... 195 Gisela Boeck 9 Translation of §§ 91–94 of Lothar Meyer’s Modernen Theorien (1864) ............................................... 215 Vera V. Mainz Part II Discoveries of Elements: Successes and Challenges 10 Discovery of Three Elements Predicted by Mendeleev’s Table: Gallium, Scandium, and Germanium ....................... 227 Mary Virginia Orna and Marco Fontani v vi Contents 11 The Rare Earths, a Challenge to Mendeleev, No Less Today ..... 259 Simon A. Cotton 12 The History (and Pre-history) of the Discovery and Chemistry of the Noble Gases ..................................... 303 Jay A. Labinger 13 Element Discovery and the Birth of the Atomic Age ............ 329 Kit Chapman 14 Mary Elvira Weeks and Discovery of the Elements ............. 343 Vera V. Mainz Part III The Periodic Table from Other Perspectives 15 Astronomy Meets the Periodic Table, Or, How Much Is There of What, and Why? .................................... 387 Virginia Trimble 16 The Impact of Twentieth-Century Physics on the Periodic Table and Some Remaining Questions in the Twenty-First Century .............................................. 409 Eric R. Scerri 17 An Essay on Periodic Tables .............................. 425 Pekka Pyykkö 18 The Periodic Table at 150: A Philatelic Celebration ............ 439 Daniel Rabinovich Index ...................................................... 451 About the Editors Carmen J. Giunta is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Scranton and an A.M. in physics and Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard University. He is editor of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. Vera V. Mainz is retired from her position as the Director of the NMR Laboratory in the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. She received her B.S. degrees in chemistry and mathematics from Kansas Newman University and her Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley working with Prof. Richard A. Andersen. She has been the Secretary/Treasurer of the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society since 1995 and she is Associate Editor of the Bulletin for the History of Chemistry. Gregory S. Girolami is the William H. and Janet G. Lycan Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his B.S. degrees in chemistry and physics from the University of Texas at Austin and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Thereafter, he was a NATO post- doctoral fellow with Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson at Imperial College of Science and Technology, and joined the Illinois faculty in 1983. His research interests are primarily the synthesis, properties, and reactivity of new inorganic, organometallic, and solid-state species, especially mechanistic studies of reactions such as the activation of alkanes and the polymerization of alkenes, the synthesis of new “molecule-based” magnetic materials, the chemical vapor deposition of thin films from “designed” molecular precursors, and the chemistry of the f-elements. vii.
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