Background:

Dmitri Mendeleev

Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian scientist born in Tobolsk, Siberia in 1834, is known as the father of the periodic table of the elements. The periodic table of the elements is an important tool used by students and chemists around the world to help them understand and simplify the often complex world of chemical reactions.

Not only did Mendeleev arrange the periodic table of the elements, he also wrote and published a 2 volume chemistry book entitled Principles of Chemistry as there was no thorough chemistry textbook at the time. Mendeleev dedicated his life to research and education. Mendeleev made it his special responsibility to educate people wherever he went. When he traveled, Mendeleev would ride in the third class section of the train just to share findings with peasants over a cup of tea. Mendeleev died on January 20, 1907 at the age of 73.

The Big Task

Mendeleev set out to identify a pattern in the elements. Mendeleev looked at many pieces of evidence and made an important observation that some elements have similar chemical and physical properties. Mendeleev's hunch was that these similarities were the key to unlocking the hidden pattern of the elements. Mendeleev then embarked on the tedious task of organizing all known information for every element to help him decipher the pattern.

To begin his task, Mendeleev wrote facts about the elements on individual paper cards. On these cards, Mendeleev wrote information such as the elements' melting points, densities, colors, atomic masses (the average mass of one atom of that element), and bonding powers (the number of chemical bonds an element can form).

Once Mendeleev's cards were made, he tried arranging them in various ways. Finally, Mendeleev noticed that patterns appeared when the elements were arranged in order of increasing atomic mass. One of the trends that he noticed showed that the bonding power of the elements from lithium to fluorine change in an orderly way. For example, after fluorine, the next heaviest element Mendeleev knew was sodium, which has the same bonding power as lithium. Using this knowledge, Mendeleev placed the card for sodium below the card for lithium. This worked well -- as he laid out cards, each element had properties similar to the elements above and below it.

Mendeleev's table was not perfect, however. Arranging the elements by increasing atomic mass left three blank spaces in the table. Despite this development, however, Mendeleev boldly proposed that these blank spaces would be filled by elements that had not yet been discovered. Mendeleev was even able to use the patterns in his table to predict the properties of these undiscovered elements. This first periodic table of the elements was published in 1869.

Procedures:

Below is a list of "made-up" elements identified as E1-E5 and their respective properties. The properties that have been considered are atomic radius, electronegativity, and ionization energy. You must investigate the resources you have in the laboratory (including materials you bring) to deduce the placement of these elements in the periodic table of elements. For instance, if you believe element E5 belongs between Litium (Li) and Beryllium (Be) you would write Li-E5-Be in your data table. Lastly, you must come up with 10 of your own made-up elements (E6 through E15). You must accurately determine their properties (atomic radius, electronegativity, and ionization energy is required). List these in your data table along with their properties. You must hand in to me, the day after your class meets for lab, a computer generated table listing all the required information. This will count as your lab grade for this activity. You will ONLY hand in the table, a formal lab report is not required.

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