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Chemistry / Re: Why do we add elements to the periodic table that decay instantly?
« on: 02/11/2016 17:58:29 »I don't think that the rare Earth elements (f block) had to be forced into the periodic table... They fit very nicely, that bit usually gets yanked out so that the dimensions of the table are closer to that of a page in a book or a poster. An extended version of the table can be found here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/32_column_PT.jpg/650px-32_column_PT.jpg
Many thanks Chiral for the link, which I've carefully studied.
It displays the "Periodic Table" as a perfectly rectangular block, consisting of 7 horizontal rows, and 32 vertical columns. Like a page in a book or a poster, as you say.
And this, perhaps demonstrates strongly the point I alluded to earlier - that we intensely want to make the elements fit into an ideal geometrical "table".
However the "table" shown in your link isn't ideal at all. A lot of it is empty, blank squares, with no actual elements in them.
For example, consider the top row of the Table. This has the element "Hydrogen" at the far left. And "Helium" over at the far right. Between these two elements there's nothing but a row of empty squares.
How do you explain that?