Strange Attractor

Episode 7: I've got a free electron, wanna party?

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We tour the periodic table - the 'map' of the atoms

If you're looking for the show notes for episode 6, click here. Sorry about the mistake!

  • This is your brain on podcasts...podcasts are good! (The New York Times)
  • Our Strange Attractor website
  • The Overcast podcast player is great & free...get it! (Overcast)
  • Boris Becker (Bio)
  • The periodic table - how atoms are organised (ptable.com)
  • Dimitri Mendeleev & the periodic table (Royal Society of Chemistry)
  • The magnetic periodic table of swear words (Amazon)
  • True nerds name their devices/servers according to a theme (Naming Schemes)
  • Mendeleev's predicted elements (Wikipedia)
  • Arrangement of the elements (BBC)
  • What is atomic mass? (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
  • What is atomic weight? (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
  • The atomic masses of tellurium & iodine are anomalies (BBC)
  • B&Q
  • Bunnings
  • Home Depot
  • Turning lead into gold is too much effort (Scientific American)
  • Turning lead into gold is too much effort (Chemistry Explained)
  • But...medieval alchemy paved the way to chemistry (Wikipedia)
  • What is an electron? (Chem4Kids)
  • Number of electrons = number of protons in the nucleus (Jefferson Lab)
  • The 'solar system' atom diagram & electron shells (CIR Rm.6)
  • Atoms like to have full outer shells...apparently it makes them 'happy' (The Science Forum)
  • Bonding diagrams of simple things like water (BBC)
  • Simple animation of H2 and H2O electron sharing (BBC)
  • Electrons in the shells of the first 20 elements (BBC)
  • An atom can have more or less electrons than protons - then it's 'charged' (Physics Classroom)
  • Electron shells are divided up into orbitals (Wikibooks)
  • Electron configurations listed on the periodic table (Chemical Elements)
  • Row 1 of the periodic table is called 'period 1': 1 shell with 0-2 electrons (Wikipedia)
  • Row 2 of the periodic table is called 'period 2': 2 shells, outer shell 0-8 electrons (Wikipedia)
  • Lithium: first shell full, 1 electron in 2nd outer shell (BBC)
  • Number of electrons in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. outer shells (Wikipedia)
  • What is a chemical reaction? (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
  • What is chemistry (& physics)? (About Education)
  • What is physics? (Physics.org)
  • Lithium, sodium & potassium react with water (YouTube)
  • What happens when you throw a lump of sodium in a river? (Digg)
  • Making table salt: sodium + chlorine reaction (Digg)
  • Neon has 8 electrons in its outer shell so it's full (BBC)
  • Elements in the vertical columns of the periodic table have similar properties because they have the same number of electrons in their outer shell (Boundless)
  • When you go down a row ('period'), you add an electron shell (Chem4Kids)
  • Sodium: 1st & 2nd shells full, 1 electron in 3rd outer shell (BBC)
  • Chlorine has 7 electrons in its 3rd (outer shell) - it wants 1 more to feel complete (BBC)
  • Table salt & its ionic bonding (NaCl) (GCSE Science)
  • Johnny's @ate_a_boiledegg account hasn't really taken off yet (Twitter)
  • Sodium's symbol (Na) comes from the Latin word for sodium carbonate, 'natrium' (Jefferson Lab)
  • Lead's symbol (Pb) comes from the Latin word for liquid silver, 'plumbum' (WebElements)
  • What is a salt? (Wikipedia)
  • Potassium: 1st, 2nd, 3rd shells full, 1 electron in 4th outer shell (BBC)
  • Potassium bromide (KBr) is also a salt - formerly used as an anticonvulsant (Wikipedia)
  • What is methane? (Science is fun)
  • Why do we need salt? (The Naked Scientists)
  • What is solubility? (Wikipedia)
  • When things dissolve in water it's called an 'aqueous solution' (Wikipedia)
  • Physicists often wonder "What would happen if the laws of physics changed?" (The Nature of Reality)
  • Are there other universes with other laws? (The Daily Galaxy)
  • "In search for alien life - follow the water" (Space.com)
  • "Could alien life exist in the methane habitable zone?" (Space.com)
  • Saturn's moon, Titan, has lakes of liquid methane and ethane (Wikipedia)
  • So far, the periodic table seems to work across the universe (Hayden Planetarium)
  • The 'nucleosynthesis periodic table' shows what kind of stars made each element (Wikipedia)
  • Once you're in the 80s & 90s in the periodic table, things get a bit unstable (Wikipedia)
  • What is radioactive decay? (NDT Resource Center)
  • What is uranium? (Jefferson Lab)
  • Uranium the movie (GenePool Productions)
  • What is plutonium? (Jefferson Lab)
  • Uranium eventually turns into lead after spitting out enough protons & energy (Wikipedia)
  • The 3 types of radiation - alpha, beta & gamma (BBC)
  • After 92 (uranium), the elements are all manmade (Jefferson Lab)
  • The 'transfermium elements' (past 100) only exist for seconds (Chemistry Explained)
  • "Superheavy element 117 points to fabled 'island of stability' on periodic table" (Scientific American)
  • Systematic element name: the temporary name given to a newly-made or not-yet-made element (Wikipedia)
  • The periodic table's 4 new elements - ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium - are just placeholder names (Compound Interest)
  • When Mendeleev published the first periodic table in 1869, he had to leave predictions/gaps for the future (Wikipedia)
  • Marie Curie wasn't born until 1867, just when the periodic table was invented (Nobelprize.org)
  • Mendeleev died in 1907, so he enjoyed his periodic table for 38 years (Wikipedia)
  • Is that Mendeleev on the cover of Jethro Tull's Aqualung?? (Wikipedia)
  • How are elements grouped? aww the 'poor metals' (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
  • Mendeleev apparently dreamt the periodic table! (Wikipedia)
  • "How one scientist dreamt up the periodic table" (Curiosity)
  • What's in a periodic table dream? (Dreaminterpretation Dictionary)
  • The ye olde 1871 periodic table (Wikipedia)
  • The periodic table was invented before we knew about electrons (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
  • Other scientists contributed, or got close, to inventing the periodic table (Royal Society of Chemistry)
  • Lanthanides & actanides (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
  • Let's draw Feynman diagrams! (Quantum Diaries)
  • Quantum calculations are haaaard - here's a paper called "Accurate Atomic Transition Probabilities for Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium" (National Institute of Standards and Technology)
  • Fancy a radon bath? (PubMed: Dose Response. 2006; 4(2): 106–118)
  • Marie Curie died of the radiation (BBC)
  • Marie Curie's notebooks are still radioactive (Open Culture)
  • Radox
    • Corrections
    • The most common form of hydrogen has 1 proton, 1 electron & NO neutrons (Chemical Elements)
    • HOWEVER...deuterium, another form of hydrogen, has 1 neutron (Wikipedia)
    • In 'covalent' bonds, electrons are shared by atoms (e.g. H2O) (Virtual Chembook)
    • In 'ionic' bonds, electrons are transferred between atoms (e.g. NaCl) (Virtual Chembook)
    • NASA thinks the moon MAY have water - 6 billion tonnes of water ice (NASA)
    • Unobtanium isn't real yet Johnny (Daily Galaxy)
      • Cheeky review? (If we may be so bold)
      • It'd be amazing if you gave us a short review...it'll make us easier to find in iTunes: Click here for instructions. You're the best! We owe you a free hug and/or a glass of wine from our cellar
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