Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, properties, behavior and the changes they undergo during reactions with other substances. Chemistry also addresses the nature of chemical bonds in chemical compounds.
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley was an English physicist, whose contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic number. This stemmed from his development of Moseley's law in X-ray spectra.
The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, arranges the chemical elements into rows ("periods") and columns ("groups"). It is an icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other sciences. It is a depiction of the periodic law, which states that when the elements are arranged in order of their atomic numbers an approximate recurrence of their properties is evident. The table is divided into four roughly rectangular areas called blocks. Elements in the same group tend to show similar chemical characteristics.
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is best known for formulating the Periodic Law and creating a version of the periodic table of elements. He used the Periodic Law not only to correct the then-accepted properties of some known elements, such as the valence and atomic weight of uranium, but also to predict the properties of three elements that were yet to be discovered.
Dmitri Mendeleev published a periodic table of the chemical elements in 1869 based on properties that appeared with some regularity as he laid out the elements from lightest to heaviest. When Mendeleev proposed his periodic table, he noted gaps in the table and predicted that then-unknown elements existed with properties appropriate to fill those gaps. He named them eka-boron, eka-aluminium, eka-silicon, and eka-manganese, with respective atomic masses of 44, 68, 72, and 100.
In chemistry, a group is a column of elements in the periodic table of the chemical elements. There are 18 numbered groups in the periodic table; the 14 f-block columns, between groups 2 and 3, are not numbered. The elements in a group have similar physical or chemical characteristics of the outermost electron shells of their atoms, because most chemical properties are dominated by the orbital location of the outermost electron.
A nonmetal is a chemical element that mostly lacks distinctive metallic properties. Seventeen elements are widely recognized as nonmetals. This article also covers six borderline elements, some or all of which are sometimes considered nonmetals.
A period 1 element is one of the chemical elements in the first row of the periodic table of the chemical elements. The periodic table is laid out in rows to illustrate periodic (recurring) trends in the chemical behaviour of the elements as their atomic number increases: a new row is begun when chemical behaviour begins to repeat, meaning that analog elements fall into the same vertical columns. The first period contains fewer elements than any other row in the table, with only two: hydrogen and helium. This situation can be explained by modern theories of atomic structure. In a quantum mechanical description of atomic structure, this period corresponds to the filling of the 1s orbital. Period 1 elements obey the duet rule in that they need two electrons to complete their valence shell.
John Alexander Reina Newlands was a British chemist who worked concerning the periodicity of elements.
The periodic table is an arrangement of the chemical elements, structured by their atomic number, electron configuration and recurring chemical properties. In the basic form, elements are presented in order of increasing atomic number, in the reading sequence. Then, rows and columns are created by starting new rows and inserting blank cells, so that rows (periods) and columns (groups) show elements with recurring properties. For example, all elements in group (column) 18 are noble gases that are largely—though not completely—unreactive.
Julius Lothar Meyer was a German chemist. He was one of the pioneers in developing the earliest versions of the periodic table of the chemical elements. The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev and he had both worked with Robert Bunsen. Meyer never used his first given name and was known throughout his life simply as Lothar Meyer.
The philosophy of chemistry considers the methodology and underlying assumptions of the science of chemistry. It is explored by philosophers, chemists, and philosopher-chemist teams. For much of its history, philosophy of science has been dominated by the philosophy of physics, but the philosophical questions that arise from chemistry have received increasing attention since the latter part of the 20th century.
Since Dimitri Mendeleev formulated the periodic law in 1871, and published an associated periodic table of chemical elements, authors have experimented with varying types of periodic tables including for teaching, aesthetic or philosophical purposes.
Chemistry is often called the central science because of its role in connecting the physical sciences, which include chemistry, with the life sciences, pharmaceutical sciences and applied sciences such as medicine and engineering. The nature of this relationship is one of the main topics in the philosophy of chemistry and in scientometrics. The phrase was popularized by its use in a textbook by Theodore L. Brown and H. Eugene LeMay, titled Chemistry: The Central Science, which was first published in 1977, with a fifteenth edition published in 2021.
Charles Janet was a French engineer, company director, inventor and biologist. He is also known for his innovative left-step presentation of the periodic table of chemical elements.
Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs was a chemist and natural philosopher most widely known for his findings on periodic laws within the chemical elements.
This is a list of 194 sources that list elements classified as metalloids. The sources are listed in chronological order. Lists of metalloids differ since there is no rigorous widely accepted definition of metalloid. Individual lists share common ground, with variations occurring at the margins. The elements most often regarded as metalloids are boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony and tellurium. Other sources may subtract from this list, add a varying number of other elements, or both.
The dividing line between metals and nonmetals can be found, in varying configurations, on some representations of the periodic table of the elements. Elements to the lower left of the line generally display increasing metallic behaviour; elements to the upper right display increasing nonmetallic behaviour. When presented as a regular stair-step, elements with the highest critical temperature for their groups lie just below the line.
Edward G. Mazurs (1894–1983) was a chemist who wrote a history of the periodic system of the chemical elements which is still considered a "classic book on the history of the periodic table". Originally self-published as Types of graphic representation of the periodic system of chemical elements (1957), it was reviewed by the ACS in 1958 as "the most complete survey of the range of human imagination in representing graphically the Mendeleev periodic law."
William Barry Jensen is an American chemist and chemical historian.
