Mystery of the Periodic Table (Living History Library)

Benjamin Wiker (1960-xa0 ) received his doctorate in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University, and has taught at Marquette University, St. Mary’s University (MN), and Thomas Aquinas College. He now writes full time, and teaches part time at Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH. He has published another book, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists , and writes for a number of national journals. Dr. Wiker is also a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, the think-tank for Intelligent Design Theory. He now lives in Hopedale, Ohio with his wife, Teresa, and seven children (Jacob, Anna, Faith, Clare, Nathaniel, Beatrice, and Rachel). This is his first book for young people. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. ALMOST ALL mystery books end with the solution. This mystery book begins with the solution. Here it is—on the facing page.What on earth is it?As it turns out, every material thing on earth—and in space as well.This is the Periodic Table of the Elements. It is the solution to the mystery of what every material thing is ultimately made of—trees, rocks, dirt, cells, plants, your hair, your skin, the clouds, the air, the sun, the moon, and the stars.Anything that has mass and takes up space is made from some of the elements.But what is an element?Elementary means the first, the very beginning. The elements are the first things out of which every material thing else is made. When you get to these elements, you have gotten to the bottom of things—although not quite the very bottom, as we shall see in a later chapter.Modern chemists define an element as a substance that cannot be broken down by chemical change into simpler, purer substances.While salt is on your table, you won’t find salt on the Table of Elements. Why? Salt can be broken down further, into Sodium and Chlorine. Sodium is found on the Table, designated by the chemical symbol “Na.” Chlorine is designated by “Cl.” When we have gotten to Sodium and Chlorine, as far as chemistry is concerned we have gotten to the bottom of things, and cannot go any further.As you can see, there are 109 elements on our Periodic Table. Some are very common. Some are very rare. Some occur in nature. Some are manmade. As we shall see in a later chapter, some more elements can be added even beyond the 109 you see here—manmade elements, not natural elements. But for now, let’s focus on the 109 we see on our Table.A little over 98½% of the earth is made up of only 8 of these elements: Iron (Fe), Oxygen (O), Silicon (Si), Magnesium (Mg), Nickel (Ni), Sulfur (S), Calcium (Ca), and Aluminum (Al). Oxygen and Iron by themselves make up about 65% of the earth.If we look at the entire universe, about 97% of it is made up of only 2 elements, the two on the very top left and top right side of the Periodic Table, Hydrogen (H) and Helium (He).Some of these elements are seen every day, although not in their purest form. The coins in your pocket or purse are (for the most part) made of Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni), Silver (Ag), and if you are really lucky or really rich, Gold (Au).Most of the elements were not easy to find. On the contrary, they were very difficult to find. They had to be discovered, and they certainly were not found conveniently labeled and stacked in such neat rows as we find them on the Periodic Table of Elements.Indeed, when we look at these nice, neat, and straight rows of elements we might think that it was a nice, neat, and straight road to their discovery. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was a long and difficult journey much like the perilous wanderings of Odysseus in Homer’s great epic tale, the Odyssey . Of course, the wandering made it an adventure, and an adventure is always an exciting thing to retell.