December 1, 2016

When Southwestern Michigan College renovated our science building two years ago, I lobbied for a Periodic Table table in the student-faculty interaction area. It seemed like such a cool way for students and faculty to reference potassium or magnesium or xenon in a variety of contexts while hanging out, leaving bread crumbs on arsenic.

Turns out no one listened to me, which is o.k.  No one listened to concerns about the seats in the laboratories and that turned out to be a pricey little switch-e-roo when students started complaining about their backs. I was glad to not be the guilty culprit in that case.

I found out within a year that putting that much money into a periodic table was fraught with the danger of irrelevance.  I had no idea how frequently we were still putting new elements on the periodic table (my aha moment came at a teaching demo a few months ago by our latest Chemistry faculty member, the first periodic table instruction I'd had in 33 years).  That thing doesn't look like anything I might have seen in Dr. Paul's Chemistry class at West Virginia University in 1980.  (To her defense, I might not even had been in class much to see it, more interested in my fairway iron than her periodic table iron.)

Anyway, it's a much more involved and beautiful visual these days. However, this is a draft table, as the New York Times reported today that four new elements have been officially named, which on the above-linked table are merely given placeholder names, all beginning with the so inelegant, dare I say un-elegant, "unun" prefixes.  C'mon, world of science, I expect so much better of you.

Nevertheless, according to the New York Times, Nihonium, Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson have officially made the cut this year.  I wonder if the selection is as bizarre as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations (I am still waiting on The Carsarium, damn it!).  Actually, according to the article, the selection may not be as bizarre. It almost sounds too inclusive. The College Football Playoff Selection Committee could learn a thing or two about allowing for public comment for a couple of months before the final selections ("Hey, if Buckeyesium couldn't even win it's own conference, it shouldn't get in.").

Anyway, back to our new science building: this rapid identification of new elements is still causing chaos. We went with a beautifully stenciled image of the Periodic Table on the wall outside of the main lecture hall.  It is now wrong.  (It actually was already wrong when "purchased," it is now just more wrong--an "unun" of its own right.)

I implore all you scientists to make a decision, as this is getting unwieldy.  Tom Lehrer barely could catch his breath when singing about the elements for 1 minute and 25 seconds back in 1959.  If the poor man was alive today to try and perform this disco version of modern elements, well, he wouldn't still be alive.

Scientists, either stop finding new elements or abandon the table--soon it's going to be too small too see.  Perhaps you can advance to a Periodic Sectional, a series of couches that can be added upon as one accumulates more gold, or gold like elements.  Besides, it's only a matter of time before the climate change deniers branch out into elemental eliminators, decrying any of our material discoveries.

After all, XTC had it almost exactly right 33 years ago when they sang:

And when the world grows old
And we know more than our brains can hold
Nature will be law
Well we're as helpless now as we've ever been before
Would not our world turn cold
If the sun refused to shine

Oh Lord deliver us from [more] elements.
We're at your mercy and your reverence.
Oh Lord deliver us from [more] elements.
We've no defense; we are impotent.

* Deliver Us From The Elements, XTC, Mummer, 1983.