Chemistry: The Periodic Table and Periodicity (clip)Show Video Details ↓ Narrator: This map is the periodic table. In many ways, the periodic table, like a map, can help us organize our knowledge of a diverse world, the diverse world of chemistry. How does a map organize information about an area? One way is to classify differences in the regions. For instance, a map might show by its colors and symbols that land is here and water is here and a marshy area separates the two. This is a very broad organization of information. Information about the elements in the periodic table is broadly organized in a similar way, dividing the elements by their properties into regions of metals and metaloids and non-metals. A map can also organize information according to similarities within a given area. A contour map, for instance, can organize information about a land area on the basis of elevation or about a water area on the basis of depth. The periodic table also organizes detailed information. The elements are arranged in order of atomic number, the number of protons in a nucleus. Each row across, or period, shows 1 kind of relationship. [silence] Each column down, or group, shows another. The detailed relationships that the periodic table shows have made it probably the most important organizing instrument of chemistry. |