Chemistry Taster Session - "Intro to the Periodic Table: History, Electronic Structure & Trends"

The periodic table is one of the most widely recognised images in science, its
chemistries equivalent to the big-bang or evolution, an underlying theory that unites everything else we do. If you stop and think about it, it’s remarkable that every known element in the Universe can be summarised on a single piece of paper in a way that allows many of their properties and relationships to be explained at a glance. Even more remarkable, almost the whole table was constructed by early chemists without any understanding of atoms or electrons, just by grouping known elements together based on their properties. As modern chemists, quantum mechanics gives us a beautiful explanation for the size and shape of the periodic table and this allows us to predict even more about the trends in bonding and physical properties as we move around the table.

This taster lecture taken from first year material will provide a brief introduction to the history, some of the theories underlying the periodic table and is intended to set you up for a course which should enable you to look at any element on the table and predict its physical properties, chemical reactivity and how it will form simple compounds with other elements.