The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables

There are thousands of periodic tables in web space, but this is the only comprehensive database of periodic tables & periodic system formulations. If you know of an interesting periodic table that is missing, please contact the database curator: Mark R. Leach Ph.D. The database holds information on periodic tables, the discovery of the elements, the elucidation of atomic weights and the discovery of atomic structure (and much, much more).

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Year: 1936

PT id = 1290, Type = formulation

Van Wert Periodic table (after Guertler-Leitgebel)

Van Wert LR, An Introduction to Physical Metallurgy, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1936, pp 17. Van Wert says the periodic table is after "Guertler-Leitgebel", which is presumably Guertler WM & Leitgebel M 1929, Vom Erz zum metallischen Werkstoff: Leitlinien und Rüstzeug der metallurgischen und metallkundlichen Wissensgebiete, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, m.b.H., Leipzig

From René Vernon who writes:

In this almost symmetrical presentation, Van Wert divides the periodic table metals into:

Strongly Electropositive:       Groups 1 to 3, Ln
High-melting Heavy Metals:   Transition metals
Low-melting Heavy Metals:    Post-transition metals

If the 15 Rare Earths had been shown as 14, and moved one cell to the left we would have a perfectly symmetrical table.

Elsewhere (p. 38) Van Wert refers to the noble metals as follows:

"With respect to corrosion, the noble metals — gold, the platinum metals, and to a less degree, silver — are in a class by themselves. They are comparatively chemically inert to all common corrodents; only silver is appreciably attacked by sulphur gas."

Van Wert's table also refers to non-metals and to inert gases. On page 7 mention is made of the metalloids:

"There are a few elements, also, that partake of the nature of both metals and nonmetals, under many—indeed, under most—conditions they seem metallic enough, but on occasion their behavior is decidedly nonmetallic. These metalloids, as they are sometimes called, add a further difficulty in the attempt to frame a satisfactory definition of the metallic state."

By 1936, it was known that metalloids had a predominately nonmetallic chemistry (Newth 1894, pp. 7??8; Friend 1914, p. 9). So, on the nonmetal side of house are metalloids; "nonmetals"; and noble gases. Separating out the halogens from the nonmetals yields: metalloids; "nonmetals"; halogens; noble gases.

The net result is four types of metals and four of nonmetals = more symmetry.

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