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  Web Book Home Page | Chemogenesis Main Index Foreword:  Chemogenesis & Chemical Education Part I   Atoms | Elements | Periodic Tables 1.1  Introduction to Chemogenesis 1.2  Nucleosynthesis of The Elements 1.3  The Segrè Chart 1.4  Quantum Numbers to Periodic Tables 1.5  The Periodic Table: What Is It Showing? 1.6  The INTERNET Database of Periodic Tables 1.7  Periodicity Part II   Structure | Bonding | Material Type 2.1  Mono-Bond Typed Binary Compounds 2.2  Binary Compound Synthlet 2.3  Electronegativity 2.4  van Arkel-Ketelaar Triangles of Bonding 2.5  Tetrahedra of Structure, Bonding & Material Type 2.6  Structure, Bonding & Material Synthlet 2.7  The Classification of Matter: Chemical Stuff Part III   Interactions | Reactions | Mechanisms 3.1  The Chemogenesis Analysis: An Overview 3.2  Lewis and Brønsted Models of Acidity 3.3  The Hard Soft [Lewis] Acid Base Principle 3.4  Main Group Elemental Hydrides 3.5  Five Hydrogen Probe Experiments 3.6  Congeneric Dots, Series & Planars 3.7  Quantifying Congeneric Behaviour 3.8  Ligand Replacement Congeneric Series 3.9  Congeneric Array Interactions 3.10  Emergence of Organic Chemistry 3.11  Congeneric Array Database 3.12  The Five Reaction Chemistries 3.13  Lewis Acids & Lewis Bases: A New Analysis 3.14  The Lewis Acid/Base Interaction Matrix 3.15  Patterns in Reaction Chemistry Poster 3.16  Lewis Acid/Base Interaction Matrix Database 3.17  Nucleophiles, Bases & The Fluoride Ion 3.18  Redox Chemistry 3.19  Redox Chemistry Synthlet 3.20  Radical Chemistry 3.21  Diradical Chemistry 3.22  Photochemistry 3.23  Species/Species Interactions 3.24  The Simplest Mechanistic Step: STAD 3.25  Unit & Compound Mechanistic Steps 3.26  The Mechanism Matrix 3.27  Addition To A Double Bond Synthlet 3.28  Pericyclic Reaction Chemistry Part IV   Chemical Theory 4.1  Why Do Chemical Reactions Occur? 4.2a  Thermochemistry: List Reactions Synthlet 4.2b  Thermochemistry: Play With Reaction Synthlet 4.2c  Thermochemistry: Bulid A Reaction Synthlet 4.3  Timeline of Structural Theory 4.4  Modern Lewis Theory 4.5  Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion: VSEPR 4.6  Diatomic Species by Molecular Orbital Theory 4.7  Polyatomic Species: Molecular Orbitals 4.8  Organic π-Systems 4.9  Functional Group Database Part V   Complexity & Emergence 5.1  Chemistry & Complexity: Systems 5.2  Linear Chemistry Systems 5.3  Chemical Systems Prone to Complexity Part VI   Extras 6.1  Chemogenesis Videos 6.2  Chemical Thesaurus Reaction Chemistry Database 6.3  Paper: Chemogenesis 6.4  Paper: Electronegativity as a Basic Elemental Property (FoC) 6.5  Workshop: What is Chemistry? 6.6  Paper: Scientific laws, Dalton’s postulates, chemical reactions
          and Wolfram’s NKS (FoC) 6.7  Literature References & Further Reading

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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).

Periodic Tables from the year 1831 :

Daubeny's Teaching Display Board & Wooden Cubes of Atomic Weights

The Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, has a display of Charles Daubeny's teaching materials, including a black painted wooden board with "SYMBOLS OF SIMPLE BODIES": showing symbols, atomic weights and names of elements in two columns, and a small pile of cubes with element symbols.

Charles Daubeny and Chemistry at the Old Ashmolean

Charles Daubeny (1795-1867) was appointed Aldrichian Professor of Chemistry at Oxford in 1822. In 1847 he moved from the original laboratory in this basement [in the museum] to a new one built at his own expense at the Botanic Garden. His apparatus went with him and was preserved there. Daubeny actively campaigned for the teaching of science in Oxford and held several professorships in addition to chemistry. He also conducted research on subjects such as photosynthesis.

From the HSM Database (Inventory no. 17504):

DAUBENY'S LIST OF ATOMIC WEIGHTS Wooden panel, black with white lettering, listing in two columns the symbols and names of twenty elements. This lecture board is identical to the table in the third edition (1831) of E. Turner, 'Elements of Chemistry', apart from the atomic weight for bromine. Daubeny wrote a useful 'Introduction to the Atomic Theory' (published in three versions: 1831, 1840, and 1850), the first edition of which also quotes Turner's table. Probably contemporary with this lecture board are the wooden cubes with the symbols for certain elements.

The period from 1810 to 1860 was crucial in the development of the periodic table. Most of the main group and transition elements had been discovered, but their atomic weights and stoichiometries (combining ratios) had not been fully deduced. Oxygen was assumed to have a weight of 6, and consequently carbon is assumed to have a mass of 6.

Daubeny's element symbols and weights – along with the modern mass data – are tabulated:

While quite a number of weights are close to the modern values, many are way out. However, the error is usually a stiotoimetric factor error.

From the HSM Database (Inventory no. 33732): SET OF WOODEN CUBES ILLUSTRATING ATOMIC WEIGHTS

Forty-two wooden cubes numbered 1-42, painted black with symbols for certain elements, compounds or radicals painted in white on the faces, together with the corresponding atomic, molecular or radical weights. The face markings appear in various combinations:

A typical cube (no. 3) may be represented by the following figure. They present something of an enigma as their faces do not form an obvious pattern. The numbers indicate that there were 42 cubes. In style they are similar to the figures on the panel of atomic weights.

The cubes are listed in Daubeny's 1861 catalogue, p. 11 as: "Wooden cubes for illustrating atomic weight". [See D. R. Oldroyd, The Chemical Lectures at Oxford (1822-1854) of Charles Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S. Notes and Records of the Royal Society, vol. 33 (1979), pp. 217-259.]

This display was spotted by Eric Scerri who was visiting the museum with Mark Leach in 2010.

There is a virtual tour on the museum, and the above display is in the basement.

© Mark R. Leach Ph.D. 1999 –

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