Specific Gravity

Specific gravity is the ratio of density of a substance compared to the density of fresh water at 4C (39 F). At this temperature the density of water is at its greatest value and equal 1 g/mL. Since specific gravity is a ratio, so it has no units. An object will float in water if its density is less than the density of water and sink if its density is greater that that of water. Similarly, an object with specific gravity less than 1 will float and those with a specific gravity greater than one will sink. Specific gravity values for a few common substances are: Au, 19.3; mercury, 13.6; alcohol, 0.7893; benzene, 0.8786. Note that since water has a density of 1 g/cm3, the specific gravity is the same as the density of the material measured in g/cm3. The Discovery of Specific Gravity The discovery of specific gravity makes for an interesting story. Sometime around 250 B.C., the Greek mathematician Archimedes was given the task of determining whether a craftsman had defrauded King Heiro II of Syracuse. The king had provided a metal smith with gold to make a crown. The king suspected that the metal smith had added less valuable silver to crown and kept some of the gold for himself. The crown weighed the same as other crowns but due to its intricate designs it was impossible to measure the exact volume of the crown so its density could be determined. The king challenged Archimedes to determine if the crown was pure gold. Archimedes had no immediate answer and pondered this question for sometime. One day while entering a bath, he noticed that water spilled over the sides of the pool, and realized that the amount of water that spilled out was equal in volume to the space that his body occupied. He realized that a given mass of silver would occupy more space than an equivalent mass of gold. Archimedes first weighed the crown and weighed out an equal mass of pure gold. Then he placed the crown in a full container of water and the pure gold in a container of water. He found that more water spilled over the sides of the tub when the craftsmans crown was submerged. It turned out that the craftsman had been defrauding the King! Legend has it that Archimedes was so excited about his discovery that he ran naked through the streets of Sicily shouting Eureka! Eureka! (Which is Greek for I have found it!).

Smaller Than the Atom

So, are atoms made of even smaller stuff? The answer to this
question is yes. Atoms are mostly empty space, but in the center of the atom is a structure called a nucleus. The nucleus is a congregation of particles. These particles are called protons and neutrons. Neutrons are neutral, or have no electrical charge. Protons, however, carry a positive electrical charge of 1. So, in a carbon atom, which has 6 protons in its nucleus, the overall electric charge of the nucleus would be 6. However, a regular atom is electrically neutral. This is because swirling around the nucleus in what is called the "electron cloud". The electrons in the electron cloud counteract the positive charges of the protons in the atomic nucleus with their negative electrical charges. This generates the neutral charge of the atom. The number of electrons and number of protons correlate in a one to one ratio. This means that there are the same number of protons and electrons in one atom. So, if an atom has 6 protons, like carbon, it will also have 6 electrons. The 6 electrons each have a charge of -1. This means that the total charge of all the electrons is -6, or -1x6. The charge of carbon's nucleus is 6 (from the protons), so when you add the two: 6 + -6, you get 0, which means that the atom, overall, has no charge. Note: Picture NOT to scale: An atom is more than 99% empty space, and the protons and neutrons make up a very small amount of the volume of an atom. Additionally, the electrons are much smaller in proportion to the nucleons (protons and neutrons) than we have depicted. The nucleons are actually about 1800 times the size of an electron.

COOLER THAN ABSOLUTE ZERO!

Group 1 Period 1 1 H 2
3 4

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
2

He
5 6 7 8 9 10

Li
11

Be
12

B
13

C
14

N
15

O
16

F
17

Ne
18

Na Mg
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Al
31

Si
32

P
33

S
34

Cl
35

Ar
36

K
37

Ca Sc Ti
38 39 40

V
41

Cr Mn Fe Co Ni
42 43 44 45 46

Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br
47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Kr
54

Rb Sr Y
55 56 57

Zr
72

Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In
73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

Sn Sb Te I
82 83 84 85

Xe
86

Cs Ba La Hf
87 88 89 104

Ta W
105 106

Re Os Ir
107 108 109

Pt
110

Au Hg Tl
111 112 113

Pb Bi
114 115

Po At
116 117

Rn
118

Fr

Ra Ac Rf

Db Sg Bh Hs Mt Ds Rg Cn Uut Uuq Uup Uuh Uus Uuo

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

Th Pa U

Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf

Es Fm Md No Lr

Periodic Table Key

X X
Synthetic Elements Liquids or melt at close to room temp.

X
Solids

XGases

Alkali Metals

Alkali Earth Metals

Transition Metals

Other Metals

Metalloids

Other Non Metals

Halogens

Noble G

Lanthanid Halogens Noble Gases

& Actinid Lanthanides & Actinides

The Periodic Table

The first periodic table was devised by Dmitri Mendeleev and published in 1869.

Mendeleev found he could arrange the 65 elements that were then known in a grid or table so that each element had:

1. A higher atomic weight than the one on its left.

2. Similar chemical properties to other elements in the same column.

He realized that the table in front of him lay at the very heart of chemistry. In his table he noted gaps - spaces where elements should be but none had yet been discovered.

In fact, just as Adams and Le Verrier could be said to have discovered the planet Neptune on paper, Mendeleev could be said to have discovered germanium (which he called eka-silicon because he observed a gap between silicon and tin), gallium (eka-aluminum) and scandium (eka-boron) on paper, for he predicted their existence and their properties before their actual discoveries.

Although Mendeleev had made a crucial breakthrough, he made little further progress because the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom had not yet been formulated.

In 1913, Henry Moseley, who worked with Rutherford, showed that it is atomic number (electric charge) which is most fundamental to the chemical properties of any element. Mendeleev had believed chemical properties were determined by atomic weight. Moseley correctly predicted the existence of new elements based on atomic numbers.

Today the chemical elements are still arranged in order of increasing atomic number (Z) as you go from left to right across the table. We call the horizontal rows periods and the vertical rows groups.

We also know now that an element's chemistry is determined by the way its electrons are arranged - its electron configuration.

The noble gases are found in group 18, on the far right of each period. The reluctance of the noble gases to undergo chemical reactions indicates that the atoms of these gases strongly prefer their own electron configurations - featuring a full outer shell of electrons - to any other.

In contrast to the noble gases, the elements with the highest reactivity are those with the greatest need to gain or lose electrons in order to achieve a full outer shell of electrons.

Elements that sit in the same group (e.g. the alkali metals in Group 1) all have the same number of outer electrons, leading to similar chemical properties.

Likewise the halogens in Group 17 also have similar properties to one another. When halogens react, they gain an electron to form negatively charged ions. Each ion has the same electron configuration as the noble gas in the same period. The ions are therefore more chemically stable than the elements from which they formed.

There is a progression from metals to non-metals across each period.

The block of elements in groups 3 - 12 contains the transition metals. These are similar to one another in many ways: they produce colored compounds, have variable valency and are often used as catalysts.

Then we come to the lanthanides (elements 58 - 71) and actinides (elements 90 - 103). The lanthanides are often called the rare earth elements, although in fact these elements are not rare. The actinides include most of the well-known elements that take part in or are produced by nuclear reactions. No element with atomic number higher than 92 occurs naturally in large quantities. Tiny amounts of plutonium and neptunium exist in nature as decay products of uranium. These elements, and higher elements, are also produced artificially in nuclear reactors or particle