A Tale of Seven Elements

U.C.L.A. professor Scerri (The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance) details the fascinating backstories of the discoverers and discoveries of the last seven chemical elements in this engaging scientific history. The author begins by explaining how chemist Dimitri Mendeleev’s 19th-century periodic table not only organized atoms into families, but also revealed lacunae where yet-to-be-discovered atoms should fit. By 1913, the seven eponymous elements—protactinium, hafnium, rhenium, technetium, francium, astatine, and promethium—had been predicted but not yet found. Twentieth-century insights into atomic structure allowed English physicist Henry Moseley to reorganize the modern periodic table according to atomic number rather than weight, and modern physics gave scientists the tools to finally find the missing elements, from silvery protractinium to superhard rhenium and the rare earth element promethium. Scerri enriches each minihistory with anecdotes of bitter rivalries, professional and personal frustrations, “scientific chicanery,” and obsessive “pathological science” done in search of the hypothesized elements and the fame that would accompany their discovery. This brief and intriguing tale offers insights into the research process as well as the history of the periodic table as researchers vied to break new ground. (June)