Random Trivia
Can poison such as arsenic (砒霜) and cinnabar (朱砂) be used in medicine?
Yes.
Arsenic is used in Chinese medicine to cure malaria and hemorrhoids (疟疾和痔疮), while cinnabar can cure epilepsy (癫痫) and insomnia.
That said, listen to medical experts, and don't try at home.
These four elements make up Archimedes's periodic table
Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.
China's different variant (金木水火土) has much more explanations and applications than that. Sorry, Archimedes.
This person made up four elements.
Archimedes. And he technically did not made them up because they are...real things
Sir William Ramsay and Morris Travers discovered it in 1898. It's named after a latin word meaning "new".
Neon (Ne)
You read the periodic table from ___ (up to down / down to up), and ___ (right to left / left to right).
Up to down, left to right.
This country is named after Silver (Ag)
Argentina
Why? I dunno, probably some colonization history stuffs
Hennig Brand, who discovered an element in the middle ages, was a/an
alchemist
Alchemy eventually succeeded: in 1941, particle accelerators successfully created gold from other atoms.
This scientist tells us that it's probably not a good idea to study radioactive stuff without protection.
Marie Curie
She has a sample of radioactive element next to her bed as a nightlight. Woe is her.
Madame Curie discovered this element, and her story has been widely told because of it.
Radium.
("Polonium" gets 600 points.)
She named Polonium Polonium because of Poland, which then becomes the home of Polonium.
Match the following:
Oxygen Helium Iodine Sodium
Noble Gas Alkali Halogen Chalcogen
Oxygen — Chalcogen
Helium — Noble Gas
Iodine — Halogen
Sodium — Alkali
This is the only radioactive element that has a symbol of one letter.
Uranium (U).
In fact, Uranium is the only element that begins with the letter U.
Mendeleev denied the existence of this group of elements because it rarely reacts.
Noble Gases
In 2016 scientists discovered disodium helide (Na2He), but nobody knows why they did that.
His contribution to the periodic table is inspired by a dream after working sleeplessly for three days
Does Mendeleev never sleep?
(Other works like Inception and Benzene rings come from dreams, too.)
Hennig Brand discovered this element when distilling urine.
Phosphorus (15P)
The phosphorus urine test is a thing. It tests the amount of phosphorus in your body.
Eat seeds and soy milk to prevent bone problems and anxiety.
How many protons does each noble gas have? (Answer 4 correctly)
2, 10, 18, 36, 54, 86, 118.
No element names start with this letter.
(Except for Q)
J.
Even exotic letters like X (Xenon), V (Vanadium), and K (Krypton) have element names.
This element, with 43 protons, is the first man-made element.
Technetium (43Te, Made in 1937)
It can be naturally made, but only through the fission of Uranium and Thorium ores. Still not in noticeable quantities, though.
This chemist contributed to the periodic table, but he also demonstrated that human heads can live for a couple of minutes after decapitation
Lavoisier used his own head.
If you do not remember, he's the guy that discovered oxygen and made illegal tax profits.
This is the subject of ancient alchemy and chemistry, both in the East and in the West.
Mercury or Sulfur: Chinese people use cinnabar (HgS) to create elixirs, and European people use Mercury in alchemy, as well as use white arsenic (As4O6) in cosmetics
(Fun fact: HgS is 朱砂 and As4O6 is 砒霜)
Write the electron configuration formula for Sodium.
[Ne] 3s1.
Simple enough?
Holmium (Ho) is named after this city in Sweden. It's the home of the Nobel Prize.
Stockholm. "Holmia" is Latin name of the city.
This project, conducted in the 20th century, has the side effect of introducing many radioactive elements to the table.
Manhattan Project
It's the project where people decided to make extinction bombs and dropped them on Japan before realizing it's a pretty bad idea.
Since theoretically the electrons of element 137 orbits at light speed, Feynman predicted that:
Element 137 does not exist :D
For all we know, elements beyond the Actinides have mostly lost practical meaning, and is only there for the sake of science.
Mendeleev predicted Ekaboron. Find it. (Hint: It's the lightest element in group 3B.)
Scandium (21Sc)
Eka means One in Sanskrit. Dve and Tri are two and three. Why he uses Sanskrit? Nobody knows.
How many SFs are in the number
(100+7000-30)/20 + 3400
?
It depends.
Maximum SF is 3 (3.75*103),
and minimum SF is 2 (3.8*103).