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Legs! Legs! Legs! (The Periodic Table) · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Que Josh Trumpet. But you know what that means, everybody.
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Speaker 3: On Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:58
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast Josh, And there's Chuck
1:01
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too. And this is the We'll get
1:04
Speaker 2: through it edition of Stuff you Should Know about the
1:07
Speaker 2: periodic teaple.
1:09
Speaker 1: Uh huh. I have other names for it.
1:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll bet you do. Can you say any of them.
1:16
Speaker 1: This is the only time I hate my job. Edition.
1:20
Speaker 1: This is the uh. Now we can stop talking about
1:23
Speaker 1: the sun episode maybe edition uh? And this is the
1:31
Speaker 1: My god, why do we ever do episodes on chemistry? Edition?
1:35
Speaker 1: I failed chemistry. It's the only thing I've ever failed
1:37
Speaker 1: was chemistry.
1:38
Speaker 2: I don't think I even ever took chemistry. To tell
1:40
Speaker 2: you the.
1:40
Speaker 1: Truth, Hey, he didn't fail it, right, I fail if
1:43
Speaker 1: you don't try.
1:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my motto. Here's what I figured out about this,
1:50
Speaker 2: like driving myself mad trying to learn this stuff and
1:52
Speaker 2: understand it. There is a lot of people out there
1:58
Speaker 2: who have written articles and explainers on the stuff that
2:03
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about, who literally don't know what
2:06
Speaker 2: they're talking about, and yet they're presenting their information like
2:09
Speaker 2: they do and it's wrong and you can't understand it,
2:14
Speaker 2: or in cases where you can't understand it, it still
2:16
Speaker 2: doesn't fully answer the question. There's a lot of stuff
2:20
Speaker 2: out there like that on this especially as it gets
2:23
Speaker 2: more and more like ourcane.
2:25
Speaker 1: Right.
2:26
Speaker 2: There's a whole group of people out there, chemists, molecular chemists,
2:29
Speaker 2: physicists who understand this, but you can put them all
2:33
Speaker 2: together and they can't coherently explain any of it to
2:37
Speaker 2: anybody else. They can just talk to one another like
2:39
Speaker 2: this where we are where us and everybody listening to
2:43
Speaker 2: this episode right now is stuck in the middle. We
2:46
Speaker 2: know enough that we can notice when somebody is wrong
2:50
Speaker 2: or not correct or doesn't know what they're talking about,
2:53
Speaker 2: but we don't know enough to understand what the actual
2:57
Speaker 2: scientists are saying and then come back and explain it. So,
3:01
Speaker 2: first of all, Breton cap off to Olivia for helping
3:04
Speaker 2: us with this one.
3:06
Speaker 1: Boy, Olivia should get a bonus for this one, quite
3:08
Speaker 1: frank for sure.
3:09
Speaker 2: And then second we might have to edit that out
3:11
Speaker 2: lot's rack the budget. Secondly, we can we're smart enough
3:16
Speaker 2: to get all this across. We are, but we're also
3:21
Speaker 2: transparent enough to admit when we're like, we don't understand
3:24
Speaker 2: this part.
3:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's a few parts I still don't get.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
3:29
Speaker 1: I imagine The good news is I imagine that maybe about
3:34
Speaker 1: twenty percent of our listenership is even hearing this right now.
3:37
Speaker 2: I hope more than that, because it's really interesting stuff.
3:41
Speaker 1: Would you click on something called how the periodic table works?
3:44
Speaker 2: Well, we're gonna have to come up with something else.
3:46
Speaker 2: I think we'll call this one legs, legs, legs.
3:51
Speaker 1: Colin tiny lettering, periodic table exactly the sex episode.
3:58
Speaker 2: Right. Well, see, we'll trick them into listening to it.
4:02
Speaker 1: All right, I know I can get some of this
4:05
Speaker 1: at the beginning, So if you'll allow me to talk
4:07
Speaker 1: about one of the only parts I understand, sure, all right, great,
4:11
Speaker 1: I'll kick it off because we have to set the
4:13
Speaker 1: stage sort of for pre periodic table construction, which is
4:17
Speaker 1: to say that early I'm sorry, late in the eighteenth century,
4:21
Speaker 1: we were working from sciences, working from the arist Totolian Aristotelian. Yeah,
4:30
Speaker 1: that's to say Aristotle system, which is which we've talked
4:34
Speaker 1: about some recently, which is, hey, we got four elements fire, earth, water,
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Speaker 1: and air. And then after that science became a little
4:42
Speaker 1: more nuanced, and they're like, hey, actually we think there
4:45
Speaker 1: are more things out there, more building blocks. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: maybe we can distinguish them from one another and categorize them,
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Speaker 1: maybe based on their mass. And this was sort of
4:56
Speaker 1: the scene when in eighteen oh four a oddly English
5:00
Speaker 1: school teacher who was also a researcher named John Dalton said,
5:04
Speaker 1: all right, things are made up of smaller things maybe these,
5:10
Speaker 1: which is not new like for you know, ancient cultures.
5:13
Speaker 1: We're even talking about things being up of smaller things.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about democritis in that episode, about things
5:18
Speaker 2: we believe before the scientific method.
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Speaker 1: Totally. That's exactly where it was. He said things are
5:23
Speaker 1: made up maybe of like these little tiny, indestructible, indivisible atoms.
5:28
Speaker 1: He got a lot of that wrong, but one thing
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Speaker 1: he got right was the idea that no, two elements
5:36
Speaker 1: that we know about so far, which were not very
5:38
Speaker 1: many at all at that point, can have an identical
5:41
Speaker 1: mass and all the atoms of that element have the
5:44
Speaker 1: same mass, which also wasn't quite right, but at the
5:47
Speaker 1: time it was right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, because you got to give it up to these guys.
5:51
Speaker 2: When we're like analyzing elements and atoms and stuff today
5:54
Speaker 2: we're using like spectrometry and particle accelerators and doing all
6:00
Speaker 2: sorts of amazing stuff. These guys are like burning things,
6:04
Speaker 2: this is eighteen o four, boiling them in acid. Yeah,
6:06
Speaker 2: Like they were doing all the stuff that a high
6:09
Speaker 2: school chemistry teacher does to demonstrate chemistry. That's what they
6:13
Speaker 2: were doing to actually isolate elements and like weigh them.
6:17
Speaker 2: They were weighing things like oxygen. Like they figured out
6:20
Speaker 2: that if you take a leader of oxygen, you will
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Speaker 2: find that it weighs one point five grams. No matter
6:27
Speaker 2: where in the world you weigh it, it's going to
6:29
Speaker 2: weigh one point five grams. Like that's what these people
6:31
Speaker 2: were doing. Can you capture a leader of oxygen? I
6:34
Speaker 2: can't know. I mean, like what they were doing was
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Speaker 2: the hardcore like bloody up, like roll up your sleeves
6:42
Speaker 2: kind of chemistry. Like apparently it was like one of
6:45
Speaker 2: the biggest scientific pushes of the nineteenth century was identifying elements,
6:51
Speaker 2: and John Dalton was the first to say, Hey, some
6:55
Speaker 2: of these I think we can kind of like try
6:57
Speaker 2: to organize them a little bit. And Dalton didn't discover
7:01
Speaker 2: any elements, from what I understand, he was just the
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Speaker 2: first one to come up with atomic theory in the
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Speaker 2: modern age and try to start ordering them based on
7:10
Speaker 2: atomic weight.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It wasn't quite the periodic table yet, but
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Speaker 1: it was a precursor foresure. And his very first version
7:18
Speaker 1: in eighteen oh three only had the five elements that
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Speaker 1: we knew about at the time hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon,
7:26
Speaker 1: and sulfur, nitrogen, was known as I think we said
7:29
Speaker 1: this in another episode the Azote or is it a zote?
7:33
Speaker 1: I guess okay Azot. His second list, just five years later,
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Speaker 1: was up to twenty elements, and then twenty four years later,
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Speaker 1: by eighteen twenty seven, that list was up to thirty six.
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Speaker 1: And as science was progressing, they started noticing patterns, and
7:51
Speaker 1: they started noticing sort of intervals where things would repeat themselves,
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Speaker 1: such that all of a sudden, A German chemist named
8:00
Speaker 1: Ahn Wolfgong in eighteen twenty nine said, well, wait a minute,
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Speaker 1: we're noticing these patterns, and some of these things are
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Speaker 1: the same, Like if you look at lithium, sodium, potassium,
8:11
Speaker 1: they have very similar properties and we might can group
8:13
Speaker 1: those together, and those three in the modern periodic table
8:17
Speaker 1: are grouped together in the same column. So he was
8:20
Speaker 1: right on the money as far as that idea.
8:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, we as humans are obsessed with
8:26
Speaker 2: finding patterns and things, and like discovering a latent pattern
8:30
Speaker 2: in nature. I mean, there's few things more exciting than that.
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Speaker 2: So these guys were looking for patterns even in places
8:35
Speaker 2: where they didn't necessarily exist, maybe maneuvering things where they
8:40
Speaker 2: should or shouldn't be. Some people took some cracks at
8:43
Speaker 2: it to try to to try to kind of organize
8:47
Speaker 2: these elements by pattern, but they ran into some problems.
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Speaker 2: One was the chemistry wasn't as exact as it needed
8:52
Speaker 2: to be to really organize stuff. There were elements that
8:57
Speaker 2: hadn't been discovered yet, so there are big missing chunks,
8:59
Speaker 2: but they didn't necessarily know they're big missing chunks. But
9:02
Speaker 2: they were on the right track that you could order
9:06
Speaker 2: these things one way or another, and when you did,
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Speaker 2: they would start showing patterns periodicity. Periodic table means that
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Speaker 2: there are periods or patterns that repeat themselves depending on
9:18
Speaker 2: how you organize these elements.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the modern periodic table that we know and loathe, Sorry,
9:29
Speaker 1: I loath that thing that they pull down in science class,
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Speaker 1: that you know teenagers just blankly stare at, not knowing
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Speaker 1: what the heck they're looking at. But it's pretty sure
9:41
Speaker 1: if you say so. We owe that to a Russian
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Speaker 1: chemist named Dmitri Mendelev. And Mendelev in eighteen sixty nine
9:51
Speaker 1: was working on the very first Russian language organic chemistry
9:55
Speaker 1: textbook in eighteen sixty nine and said, you know what
9:59
Speaker 1: we have sixty three three elements. At this point, I
10:01
Speaker 1: think we can organize these, and he did so he
10:07
Speaker 1: arranged things in columns. He had to reorder some things
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Speaker 1: from the previous order. So he's like, maybe we shouldn't
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Speaker 1: organize just by atomic mass, maybe we should order them
10:18
Speaker 1: into these similarities and how they behave. And the big,
10:22
Speaker 1: big thing that Mendelev landed on was leaving gaps where
10:28
Speaker 1: he saw gaps and instead of just you know, buttoning
10:31
Speaker 1: it up and making it look a certain way, he said,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to leave a gap here. And this is
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Speaker 1: actually what kind of proved his worth in the fact
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Speaker 1: that he was really on the right track, because in
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Speaker 1: the fifteen years following him leaving those gaps, three elements
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Speaker 1: were discovered that fit those very gaps that he had
10:48
Speaker 1: left perfectly, like a little puzzle piece.
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Speaker 2: It's like the molecular chemistry version of Babe Ruth calling
10:54
Speaker 2: a shot. Yeah, basically essentially, So like when it turned
10:57
Speaker 2: out in the next fifteen years, they found those elements
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Speaker 2: that did not only fill those spots, but they had
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Speaker 2: properties that Mendeleev predicted they would like. He was like,
11:08
Speaker 2: they were like, you did, really good guy. He also
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Speaker 2: predicted some other ones that didn't come true, but everybody
11:14
Speaker 2: was just like, whatever, it's fine. So that was like
11:17
Speaker 2: the model that everybody used from that point on, and
11:20
Speaker 2: it's the classic model that we see today, where it's
11:23
Speaker 2: kind of like a castle with turrets on either side,
11:26
Speaker 2: and you know the brick in the middle, and then
11:28
Speaker 2: there's like a couple of rows below that are a
11:31
Speaker 2: mote if you squint hard enough. Yeah, that's Mendeleev who
11:35
Speaker 2: came up with that whole thing. And the way that
11:37
Speaker 2: they're arranged is not by atomic mass but by atomic number.
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Speaker 2: That's why if you look, and we should probably say,
11:44
Speaker 2: the way you read the periodic table is from left
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Speaker 2: to right and top to bottom right. So the whole
11:48
Speaker 2: thing starts in the top left with number one hydrogen.
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Speaker 2: And the reason it's number one is because it has
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Speaker 2: one that's right, it has one proton, chuck, and because
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Speaker 2: there's one proton in its stable format, has one electron
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Speaker 2: and all that's going to be important in a minute.
12:04
Speaker 1: That's right, I mean, sure, we go ahead and take
12:07
Speaker 1: a break. I feel like that was kind of good
12:08
Speaker 1: setup material. Sure, all right, we'll take a break and
12:11
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more things to enlighten you
12:15
Speaker 1: and numb you. All right, So the modern periodic table,
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Speaker 1: I think where was mendelev He had sixty three on
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Speaker 1: his first Yeah, sixty three known elements at the time
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Speaker 1: on his first stab. The modern periodic table right now
12:55
Speaker 1: stands at one hundred and eighteen, and I think they've
12:58
Speaker 1: already said they think possibly may be one day it
13:01
Speaker 1: may top out at one seventy three. We'll see, we'll see.
13:06
Speaker 1: But that's sort of you know, the thinking, the logic.
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Speaker 1: But right now we're at one hundred and eighteen elements
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Speaker 1: that we know about. It includes on the chart the
13:17
Speaker 1: name of the element. They're usually a one or two
13:21
Speaker 1: letter symbol, which is almost always short for the name.
13:25
Speaker 1: But in a case of gold, like when you see
13:27
Speaker 1: au for gold and you're like, what the heck is
13:29
Speaker 1: that all about? That just means it's based on the
13:31
Speaker 1: original Latin for gold rum. And they are placed, like
13:36
Speaker 1: you said before, the break, in order of their atomic number,
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Speaker 1: which represents the protons in each atom, and that is
13:43
Speaker 1: what makes that each element unique. Over those seven rows
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Speaker 1: aka periods, and eighteen numbered columns aka groups.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the rows across horizontally, those are the periods
13:57
Speaker 2: and Like you said, it's really important to remember. If
14:00
Speaker 2: you take a proton and add it to an element,
14:03
Speaker 2: you don't have like a variation on the element. You
14:06
Speaker 2: have an entirely new element. Everything else you can mess
14:09
Speaker 2: around with fudge, mess with the neutrons, mess with the electrons.
14:12
Speaker 2: If you add a proton or take away proton, you
14:14
Speaker 2: got a totally different element, which is why you can
14:17
Speaker 2: order them by their atomic number number one with hydrogen
14:20
Speaker 2: number two, helium which has two protons, and so on
14:25
Speaker 2: and so forth. When you see that little number in
14:27
Speaker 2: the top left of the square for that element, that's
14:30
Speaker 2: how many protons it has. But again, as we'll see,
14:34
Speaker 2: if we're talking about on the periodic table, stable atoms,
14:40
Speaker 2: that means that they don't have an electric charge. They're neutral,
14:43
Speaker 2: and that means that they have an even number of
14:46
Speaker 2: protons and electrons. Protons are positively charged, electrons are negatively charged,
14:51
Speaker 2: and if you have one in one, they cancel each
14:54
Speaker 2: other off, two and two they cancel each other off,
14:56
Speaker 2: or at the very least they make the electric charge neutral.
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Speaker 1: All right, So if you're looking, if you've brought up
15:04
Speaker 1: a picture by now of the periodic table, because you
15:06
Speaker 1: really want to follow along.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good evolve.
15:09
Speaker 1: God bless you for doing such a thing. And secondly
15:12
Speaker 1: you might say, well, wait a minute, chuck, what are
15:14
Speaker 1: those what's that thing underneath everything? We will get to
15:18
Speaker 1: this in a minute. But those fourteen short columns underneath
15:21
Speaker 1: is called the F block, and those are the seventh
15:24
Speaker 1: and eighth periods aka rows that are detached and those
15:29
Speaker 1: are unnumbered rows, whereas the other rows are numbered through eighteen.
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Speaker 1: So put a pin in the F block all elements
15:37
Speaker 1: within a period, and again that is the row. If
15:39
Speaker 1: you're looking horizontal, all the elements on each row have
15:42
Speaker 1: the same number of electron shells. And when you think
15:46
Speaker 1: about that in your mind's eye, you're probably picturing how
15:49
Speaker 1: we think of that in our mind's eye because of
15:52
Speaker 1: chemistry class and science class, which is, you know, a
15:55
Speaker 1: circle around in atom's nucleus that holds electrons.
16:00
Speaker 2: Right like in orbit. That's Neil's Boor's contribution, although he
16:04
Speaker 2: made plenty of contributions, but the whole idea that we
16:06
Speaker 2: have of the atom being consisting of like a nucleus
16:11
Speaker 2: that's kind of like the sun and electrons orbit orbiting
16:14
Speaker 2: around it like planets. That's thanks to Neil's bore and
16:18
Speaker 2: the actual orbit. Let's say you have just one circle
16:23
Speaker 2: around the nucleus. That's a shell. It's one shell, at
16:27
Speaker 2: another one that's the second shell, at another one that's
16:29
Speaker 2: the third shell, and they actually fill up in order.
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Speaker 2: So when you follow along across the rows, the horizontal
16:37
Speaker 2: rows called periods on the periodic table, all of those
16:41
Speaker 2: in that row have the same number of shells one shell,
16:45
Speaker 2: and the second shell, and the third shell and the
16:47
Speaker 2: fourth shell. And as you go down, each row has
16:51
Speaker 2: the all the shells that the ones above it had,
16:55
Speaker 2: and now they've added another shell because their other shells
16:57
Speaker 2: are full of electrons.
16:59
Speaker 1: Right, So if you look at periodic table, get out
17:01
Speaker 1: your little picture and you look at that first row
17:05
Speaker 1: or period, that means it just has one shell capable
17:09
Speaker 1: of holding up to two electrons, and so that's why
17:13
Speaker 1: there are only two elements there. Hydrogen usually has one
17:16
Speaker 1: electron and helium, which normally has two. And then you
17:21
Speaker 1: go down from there, the second and third shells can
17:23
Speaker 1: hold up to eight electrons. So those second and third
17:26
Speaker 1: rows are each going to have eight elements, and so on.
17:29
Speaker 1: For the fourth and fifth it's eighteen. The sixth and
17:32
Speaker 1: seventh hold thirty two, and so there are thirty two
17:36
Speaker 1: elements on the six and seventh rows.
17:39
Speaker 2: Just to demonstrate a little further, so helium has two
17:43
Speaker 2: electrons in that one shell. Helium's full. The first element
17:47
Speaker 2: on the next row that has a second shell, that's lithium.
17:51
Speaker 2: Lithium has two electrons in its first shell that's full,
17:55
Speaker 2: but it has an extra electron. So now it's added
17:57
Speaker 2: another shell the second shelf to how's that first electron?
18:00
Speaker 2: And you go all the way down to the very
18:02
Speaker 2: end of that row that lithium starts, and you find neon.
18:06
Speaker 2: Neon has ten. Its first shell of two is full
18:09
Speaker 2: of electrons. It's second shell they can hold up to
18:11
Speaker 2: eight is full, so it has ten total electrons. This
18:15
Speaker 2: is what the periods are showing us the number of shells,
18:18
Speaker 2: and then eventually in a second will know the number
18:21
Speaker 2: of electrons that can fill those shells.
18:23
Speaker 1: That's right, And the periods of the rose. We're going
18:25
Speaker 1: to say that a thousand times. Groups are columns, periods
18:28
Speaker 1: are rows. Because if there's one takeaway from this whole thing,
18:32
Speaker 1: you can at least look smart. And when you walk
18:34
Speaker 1: into a room with a periodic table chart and say
18:37
Speaker 1: and someone says, what are those rows and columns? And
18:39
Speaker 1: you can say, do you mean groups and periods?
18:42
Speaker 2: Yeah? And then really quickly after that, look at you're
18:44
Speaker 2: watching and be like, look at the time. I'm late,
18:45
Speaker 2: and run out of the room so that there's no
18:47
Speaker 2: follow up questions.
18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and make a U shaped hole in the wall,
18:51
Speaker 1: not the letter you, but a YOU shaped Yeah. Nice,
18:55
Speaker 1: did that come through?
18:56
Speaker 2: Sure it did once you spell it.
18:59
Speaker 1: The groups are what we're going to talk about next,
19:01
Speaker 1: and those are the columns. And this is where Mendelev
19:05
Speaker 1: realized these patterns were coming into play. And once you know,
19:10
Speaker 1: sub atomic theory came about and we started being able
19:13
Speaker 1: to drill down further and further, we started to be
19:16
Speaker 1: able to get way more specific. Yeah. So these patterns
19:19
Speaker 1: in these rhythms on the columns are based on the
19:22
Speaker 1: number of valence electrons for each element, which means how
19:26
Speaker 1: many electrons you would normally find in that outermost shell.
19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the outermost shell is important, Chuck, because that's
19:33
Speaker 2: where all the action happens. That's when atoms bond together
19:38
Speaker 2: to make new molecules. That's where the attraction or repulsion
19:42
Speaker 2: happens like that is the that's the active shell. All
19:46
Speaker 2: the other shells are full. And when a shell is full,
19:49
Speaker 2: it's basically content. It just wants to sit there. It
19:51
Speaker 2: wants to be left alone. But if that outermost shell
19:55
Speaker 2: isn't full, then it's ready for some action. It's got
19:57
Speaker 2: its leather jacket on, it's got its dice in its pocket,
20:00
Speaker 2: may be a switchblade, and it's looking for trouble. Yeah,
20:04
Speaker 2: so more than more than I think even rows, Like
20:07
Speaker 2: all of the elements that are in a row, remember
20:10
Speaker 2: horizontal across a period. They're related because they all have
20:14
Speaker 2: the same shell, the same number of shells one, two, three, four,
20:16
Speaker 2: and so on the groups up and down the columns.
20:21
Speaker 2: They're more related really because they have the same number
20:24
Speaker 2: of electrons in the outermost shell. They can have a
20:27
Speaker 2: bunch of different numbers of shells, like for example, I
20:30
Speaker 2: think floorine can have five shells but only one electron
20:36
Speaker 2: in that that outermost shell, and or it could have
20:39
Speaker 2: one shell and just have one electron in that outermost shell,
20:42
Speaker 2: like a hydrogen. And they're more related because they'll they'll
20:46
Speaker 2: react to other things more than they would if they
20:51
Speaker 2: had different numbers of electrons.
20:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can add something to something you should remember
20:56
Speaker 1: because this will make you look even one step smarter
20:59
Speaker 1: before you run out of the room through the wall,
21:01
Speaker 1: just say, oh, yeah, you know, it's organized into periods
21:05
Speaker 1: and groups, and the periods of the rows and the
21:07
Speaker 1: groups of the columns in if you ask me the
21:10
Speaker 1: columns aka groups, that's really where it's at.
21:14
Speaker 2: They're more related, they're.
21:16
Speaker 1: More related, and then you run through the wall.
21:19
Speaker 2: Right, So let me give you an example here.
21:21
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, this is if you want to really,
21:23
Speaker 1: really really be smart, you remember.
21:24
Speaker 2: This, right, if you have your periodic table out really honestly,
21:28
Speaker 2: it will make this whole thing so much easier. But
21:31
Speaker 2: if you look all the way down to the second
21:33
Speaker 2: group from the right that starts with florine. Yeah, if
21:37
Speaker 2: you look at floorine that has I think nine electrons
21:42
Speaker 2: and it's in period two, so we know that it
21:44
Speaker 2: has two shells. So we know that it has two
21:47
Speaker 2: electrons in its first shell, so it must have seven
21:50
Speaker 2: electrons in its extra shell or a second shell. And
21:54
Speaker 2: since we know that the second shell can hold eight,
21:57
Speaker 2: there's one little irritating gap and it wants to fill it.
22:01
Speaker 2: So fluorine is super duper reactive. On the other hand,
22:05
Speaker 2: you've got things like potassium. It has only one electron
22:08
Speaker 2: and it's our most shell, and it wants to actually
22:12
Speaker 2: get rid of that electron because I think I said earlier,
22:15
Speaker 2: when a shell is full, the atom is content and happy.
22:19
Speaker 2: It doesn't want to do anything with anybody. If it
22:22
Speaker 2: just has one left over, like one hole or one electron,
22:25
Speaker 2: it either wants to get rid of that one electron
22:27
Speaker 2: so that it can lose that shell and go down
22:29
Speaker 2: to the next shell which is full, or it can
22:32
Speaker 2: fill its shell like fluorine wants to with an extra electron.
22:35
Speaker 2: Either way, they're super reactive, and it all happens in
22:38
Speaker 2: the outermost shell, the valance shell, and that's why that's
22:42
Speaker 2: where all that action happens.
22:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what something we haven't even said
22:46
Speaker 1: that I think is important that dawned on me. What
22:50
Speaker 1: is the periodic table. Isn't just a like, let's just
22:54
Speaker 1: do this thing so we can group them together a
22:57
Speaker 1: periodic table. The periodic table is made organize this way
23:01
Speaker 1: so chemist and people that really know what they're doing
23:04
Speaker 1: can look at a poster on a wall at any
23:08
Speaker 1: of those squares and know Because of where it is
23:12
Speaker 1: on the row, where it is on the column, what
23:15
Speaker 1: color it is, and what block it is, and we'll
23:17
Speaker 1: get to those things in a minute. And they can
23:20
Speaker 1: know a lot of very specific things just because of
23:23
Speaker 1: where it sits and what it looks like and what
23:25
Speaker 1: color it is.
23:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can tell you whether it's going to blow
23:28
Speaker 2: up in water, like exactly like I guess apparently sodium
23:33
Speaker 2: pure sodium does. They can tell you if it's shiny.
23:37
Speaker 2: There's all of this has to do just almost entirely
23:40
Speaker 2: with the number of electrons it has in its outermost shell.
23:43
Speaker 1: All that stuff.
23:45
Speaker 2: That's the evolution of the periodic table. People notice properties,
23:49
Speaker 2: physical properties, They noticed appearance, stuff like that, and then
23:52
Speaker 2: as they learned more and more about the atom, they
23:55
Speaker 2: figured out why in the atom those properties existed. They
24:00
Speaker 2: were able to classify those things together in the periodic table. So,
24:03
Speaker 2: like you said, a chemist today can look at that
24:05
Speaker 2: and be like, oh, that's going to be a shiny
24:07
Speaker 2: metal that will explode in your hand if you look
24:09
Speaker 2: at it wrong, because it's in this group of elements, right,
24:13
Speaker 2: And I saw it described by a chemist really well,
24:16
Speaker 2: if you like, to a chemist, a periodic table looks
24:20
Speaker 2: like a map to us. Like if you look at
24:23
Speaker 2: a map of the United States, you know that if
24:25
Speaker 2: you are looking at someplace in the north, it's going
24:28
Speaker 2: to be colder there than somewhere in the south. You
24:32
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what the temperature is or anything like
24:34
Speaker 2: that necessarily, but you know, generally based on this map,
24:37
Speaker 2: it's a map to the elements.
24:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it also might you know, you might think
24:43
Speaker 1: if you're looking at a map of the South, like
24:45
Speaker 1: that's where people are more like this and in the
24:48
Speaker 1: Midwest people maybe you know, it tells you. A map
24:51
Speaker 1: tells you a lot more than just like what the
24:52
Speaker 1: weather's like. Yeah, just like a periodic table. So if
24:56
Speaker 1: a scientist, if a chemist looks at silicon, I look
25:00
Speaker 1: at it and I see a capital S lowercase I,
25:03
Speaker 1: the word silicon, the number fourteen in the left hand corner,
25:07
Speaker 1: and that it's yellow. A chemist looks at it and says, well,
25:10
Speaker 1: I see it's in between on the row aluminum and phosphorus,
25:15
Speaker 1: and in the column it's below carbon and above germanium.
25:20
Speaker 1: And I see it's numbers fourteen and it's yellow, which
25:23
Speaker 1: means it's a metaloid. So I can tell you like
25:25
Speaker 1: these twelve things about silicon just because of where it
25:29
Speaker 1: sits on that map. Yes, it's pretty amazing. I just
25:33
Speaker 1: I don't get it, but it's amazing, right.
25:35
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, we're not going to
25:37
Speaker 2: explain what those fourteen things are because now there are
25:39
Speaker 2: the kind of things you have to go to graduate
25:42
Speaker 2: school in chemistry to truly understand. It's okay that we
25:45
Speaker 2: don't understand it. All you have to take away from
25:48
Speaker 2: this and all we're trying to get across, is that
25:50
Speaker 2: trained chemists can look at the periodic table and realize
25:53
Speaker 2: a lot about whatever element they're looking at and figure
25:56
Speaker 2: out how to mix it with other elements to do
25:59
Speaker 2: amazing things. Or if you put together these two things,
26:02
Speaker 2: this is probably the reaction that you're going to have.
26:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's also for someone like us. It can
26:08
Speaker 1: get really confusing because when you look at different periodic tables,
26:12
Speaker 1: one thing you'll notice is that the colors may be different,
26:16
Speaker 1: like that there is no unless I'm wrong, there isn't
26:19
Speaker 1: one completely settled. This is the only way to do it.
26:22
Speaker 1: Periodic table. Oh no, as far as a lot of
26:26
Speaker 1: it goes. But like you know, depending on who you
26:29
Speaker 1: are and how you want to organize a periodic table
26:31
Speaker 1: that you use. Those colors may mean different things, so
26:34
Speaker 1: it can get really really confusing. Oh yeah when it
26:37
Speaker 1: comes to that stuff.
26:38
Speaker 2: For sure. And usually there is like a key or
26:41
Speaker 2: a legend on the periodic table that says, this is
26:44
Speaker 2: what these colors mean. But if you take away the colors,
26:47
Speaker 2: the layout of them across and down, if you look
26:51
Speaker 2: at a periodic table, that's generally going to be the
26:53
Speaker 2: same for any periodic table that looks even roughly like
26:57
Speaker 2: what you're looking at. It's the colors that really kind
26:59
Speaker 2: of change things up. But more and more, as we've
27:02
Speaker 2: learned more about the atom, starting in the early twentieth
27:06
Speaker 2: century onward, and quantum mechanics kind of became a thing
27:10
Speaker 2: that got incorporated into the periodic table as well, And
27:13
Speaker 2: that is where we get to essentially the third way
27:17
Speaker 2: that the whole thing's organized, which is by blocks, subshells, S, P, D,
27:24
Speaker 2: and F and so the number the number of shells
27:33
Speaker 2: that an element has that's its period across, the number
27:37
Speaker 2: of electrons in its outermost shell that's its group. The
27:42
Speaker 2: blocks describe where the outer most electron is, and if
27:48
Speaker 2: you'll allow me for a second to just kind of
27:50
Speaker 2: take a little divergence here. It helps under it helps
27:54
Speaker 2: you understand it.
27:54
Speaker 1: I think, please, can we talk about baseball?
27:57
Speaker 2: No, not that kind of divergence, like deeper into chemistry
28:01
Speaker 2: kind of divergence.
28:02
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna go out and think about baseball.
28:04
Speaker 2: Okay. So, so that whole model that Nils Bor gave
28:10
Speaker 2: us of, like the planetoid nucleus and or the sun
28:14
Speaker 2: like nucleus and the planetoid electron orbiting it, that is
28:19
Speaker 2: really off. That's not at all what they're like. It's
28:22
Speaker 2: good for people who don't really care about this kind
28:24
Speaker 2: of thing to walk around thinking, but when you actually
28:27
Speaker 2: start to try to understand the periodic table, it really
28:30
Speaker 2: gets in the way. So if you can kind of
28:32
Speaker 2: throw that out and instead think of electrons as not
28:37
Speaker 2: particles like planetoids, they're actually waves of energy, right, and
28:43
Speaker 2: they like to orbit atoms because their negative electrical charge
28:47
Speaker 2: is attracted to the positive electrical charge of the protons.
28:51
Speaker 2: That's why they're orbiting or flying around that nucleus. But
28:55
Speaker 2: they don't do it in like these tight little orbits
28:58
Speaker 2: like a planet does around like the Sun. Instead, they
29:03
Speaker 2: inhabit three dimensional areas that follow predictable shapes. Depending on
29:08
Speaker 2: the energy level of that electron. You can say what
29:13
Speaker 2: shape it's going to follow around that nucleus, but you
29:17
Speaker 2: can't say where it is at any given point in time,
29:20
Speaker 2: thanks to our friend Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Heisenberg said, you
29:25
Speaker 2: can know the velocity of an object, or you can
29:30
Speaker 2: know the location of a quantum object. You can't know both.
29:34
Speaker 2: And because we know the energy of an object, we
29:37
Speaker 2: can figure out its velocity at speed like an electron,
29:41
Speaker 2: which means we can't know where it is. So these
29:43
Speaker 2: orbits actually are where they may be ninety percent of
29:48
Speaker 2: the time. That's what an actual electron orbit is. And
29:52
Speaker 2: again it follows is weird, cool looking little three dimensional
29:56
Speaker 2: four leaf clover shapes just really neat and depending on
30:00
Speaker 2: on the energy of the electron, it's going to inhabit
30:02
Speaker 2: a specific place ninety percent of the time around the
30:08
Speaker 2: nucleus of that atom, either close to the atom further
30:11
Speaker 2: out further out, depending on the shell that it's associated with.
30:15
Speaker 2: And the block is where the highest energy the outermost
30:19
Speaker 2: electron is in that position. And again it's denoted by
30:24
Speaker 2: SPD and F and it gets way more arcane than that.
30:28
Speaker 2: But all you have to remember is that when you're
30:31
Speaker 2: looking at blocks, they're talking about the specific location of
30:35
Speaker 2: the most energetic electron. And again, since the outermost electrons
30:40
Speaker 2: are where all the action happens, the most energetic of
30:43
Speaker 2: the outermost electrons are really where the action happens. And
30:48
Speaker 2: that's why it's become a little more sophisticated, a little
30:53
Speaker 2: more refined over time, thanks to the addition of quantum
30:56
Speaker 2: mechanics in our understanding of the atom. Are you there, Chuck?
31:01
Speaker 2: Did you outside?
31:03
Speaker 1: Sorry, I just came back in. I didn't actually think
31:05
Speaker 1: about baseball. I was just kidding. I watched an entire
31:08
Speaker 1: baseball game.
31:08
Speaker 2: Oh, who won?
31:11
Speaker 1: I have no joke. My brain is too mushy for
31:15
Speaker 1: a joke right now. No, I actually listened to that
31:18
Speaker 1: and I learned from you.
31:20
Speaker 2: So oh. I appreciate that. Thank you, because I felt
31:22
Speaker 2: like I was hanging from a trapeze by my fingernails.
31:26
Speaker 1: Well, I was underneath you with a net. That's all
31:28
Speaker 1: I'm good for.
31:29
Speaker 2: It, Thanks, buddy, I appreciate it. And by the way,
31:31
Speaker 2: I didn't want to just walk past. That's all you're
31:33
Speaker 2: good for. I just couldn't even bring myself to recognize
31:37
Speaker 2: such a dumb thing that was said.
31:39
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. So the final thing we got to
31:42
Speaker 1: talk about is kind of brings it back to the
31:44
Speaker 1: beginning of how they originally just started to think about
31:47
Speaker 1: grouping things, which was by their atomic mass. That the
31:51
Speaker 1: sort of very basic thing that they first thought they
31:53
Speaker 1: could use as a grouping device. And they still will
31:57
Speaker 1: indicate the atomic mass on most periodic tables, but the
32:00
Speaker 1: atomic mass is actually a weighted average of the amount
32:05
Speaker 1: of protons plus neutrons, But it depends on how abundant
32:09
Speaker 1: different isotopes in that element are out in nature, and
32:12
Speaker 1: it's not always the same. So carbon is a great
32:15
Speaker 1: example that Livia used. It always has six protons, usually
32:19
Speaker 1: has six neutrons, but sometimes can have seven or eight.
32:23
Speaker 1: So instead of having an atomic mass of just twelve
32:26
Speaker 1: six plus six, they take a weighted average and it
32:29
Speaker 1: weighs out to twelve point zero one point one. So
32:32
Speaker 1: if you see those numbers with a decimal point, you
32:35
Speaker 1: can understand that that's because it's a weighted average and
32:38
Speaker 1: not just a locked in number.
32:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily have much to do with
32:43
Speaker 2: the periodic table. But you've mentioned isotopes, and all those
32:45
Speaker 2: are as an element with more or less electrons than
32:49
Speaker 2: it has when it's stable in a neutral charge. If
32:52
Speaker 2: you take away an electron, it has more positively charged
32:55
Speaker 2: protons and electrons, so that's a positive iyon. If you
32:58
Speaker 2: add an electron, like say fluorine wants to do, it
33:02
Speaker 2: becomes a it has more electrons than protons, so it
33:06
Speaker 2: becomes a negatively charged isotope. So those are possible too.
33:11
Speaker 2: But just bear in mind you're not changing the number
33:14
Speaker 2: of protons, because if you do that you have a
33:17
Speaker 2: new element. You're just changing the number of electrons, either
33:19
Speaker 2: adding or taking away. And one of the other things
33:21
Speaker 2: about the periodic table is you can point to different
33:24
Speaker 2: different sections and be like, those are the ones that
33:27
Speaker 2: form positive ions because they give away their extra electron.
33:31
Speaker 2: Those are the ones that form negative ions because they
33:34
Speaker 2: attract extra electrons that they normally have in their neutrally
33:37
Speaker 2: charged state. That's another thing that you can just point
33:40
Speaker 2: to at the periodic table.
33:42
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing, it is.
33:45
Speaker 2: I mean, the fact that people have figured this out
33:46
Speaker 2: is just hats off to all of the scientificals that
33:49
Speaker 2: were involved in this. Over the years.
33:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say, we take a break, sure, and when
33:55
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to tell you about how
33:56
Speaker 1: things got very interesting in terms of the periodic table.
33:59
Speaker 1: And then I jeen thirties right after this.
34:26
Speaker 2: Chuck, I feel like we made it through the hardest part.
34:29
Speaker 2: We're out of the out of the woods.
34:31
Speaker 1: As I'm shaking a little less, I am too, but
34:35
Speaker 1: I won't fully relax for another fifteen.
34:38
Speaker 2: Just hang in, hang in there, We'll get it all right.
34:41
Speaker 1: So what happened in the nineteen thirties.
34:44
Speaker 2: Oh, well, a guy named doctor Lawrence I can't remember,
34:46
Speaker 2: but he the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories named after him, in
34:50
Speaker 2: part invented particle accelerators, where you use incredible amounts of
34:55
Speaker 2: energy to throw trillions of particles of different weights or
35:00
Speaker 2: specific weights at a target atom. Tell them what Einstein how?
35:05
Speaker 2: Einstein described this process.
35:08
Speaker 1: Like shooting birds in the dark in a country where
35:11
Speaker 1: there are only a few birds.
35:13
Speaker 2: Right, Like, the chances of you actually having a collision
35:16
Speaker 2: are so remote that you like, they're almost indescribable mathematically.
35:21
Speaker 2: But if you shoot trillions of particles, you really increase
35:24
Speaker 2: your chances of there being some kind of collision and
35:27
Speaker 2: when you collide a one particle one atom with another
35:31
Speaker 2: atom with enough energy, they can combine. And when you
35:34
Speaker 2: add proton to proton, remember, you get a new element.
35:38
Speaker 2: And so with particle accelerators they were able to start
35:41
Speaker 2: creating elements that you can't find in nature. And then
35:44
Speaker 2: you started doing this all the way back in the
35:46
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, and this research is what actually directly led
35:49
Speaker 2: to nuclear bomb. Apparently, when Einstein heard that Lawrence had
35:55
Speaker 2: created this particle accelerator, he advised FDR to start working
35:59
Speaker 2: on a bomb because it was now a thing, like
36:02
Speaker 2: the world had just been prepared scientifically for a bomb
36:06
Speaker 2: to exist soon.
36:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, so lab created elements, like you said, started being
36:12
Speaker 1: a thing in nineteen thirty seven. Anything past uranium on
36:16
Speaker 1: the chart you cannot find in nature because it decays
36:20
Speaker 1: much too fast to even be around and know it's
36:23
Speaker 1: a thing and study. But so anything past uranium as
36:27
Speaker 1: LAB created. And in nineteen thirty seven, technetium was the
36:33
Speaker 1: very first blank spot to be filled in with a
36:36
Speaker 1: LAB created element as number forty three nuclear bombs that
36:42
Speaker 1: you mentioned when they started doing the nuclear tests out
36:46
Speaker 1: on the Marshall Islands in the fifties, they would send
36:49
Speaker 1: planes out into these explosions with filters on them to
36:53
Speaker 1: scoop up unusual atoms and discover potentially elements. That is
36:58
Speaker 1: how we got element ninety nine named Einsteinium. And I
37:03
Speaker 1: guess we should talk a little bit about the naming
37:05
Speaker 1: because the IUPAC actually has rules around this. It says
37:09
Speaker 1: new elements have to be named, and this is very interesting.
37:14
Speaker 1: A mineral, a place or a country, a property, or
37:17
Speaker 1: a scientist or a mythological concept, which is fascinating. So
37:23
Speaker 1: we have some of the latest elements. I believe in
37:26
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen is when we got one thirteen through eighteen.
37:29
Speaker 1: We got the element tennessine because it was there were
37:35
Speaker 1: institutions in Tennessee that led to the discovery of this
37:39
Speaker 1: super heavy element, and so they named it Tennessee and
37:42
Speaker 1: most of them sort of follow that naming convention.
37:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, Nihonium is named after Nihan, which is the Japanese
37:48
Speaker 2: name for Japan. A Muscovian is named after Moscow where
37:53
Speaker 2: a lab where that was created in a Ghanissan Oganissan
37:59
Speaker 2: Organisan aganison, that's what it is. It's named after a
38:03
Speaker 2: guy named Yuri Oganessian who is a Russian essentially element hunter.
38:08
Speaker 2: Now he has got tons of funding behind him, has
38:13
Speaker 2: set up new particle accelerators with more and more energy,
38:16
Speaker 2: and is bashing things together in the search for entirely
38:20
Speaker 2: new elements that not only don't exist on Earth, they
38:24
Speaker 2: may not exist anywhere else in the universe. They may
38:27
Speaker 2: only exist theoretically until Aganessian manages to smash the right
38:33
Speaker 2: atoms together to create those elements for a pico second.
38:38
Speaker 2: Like they're so unstable that they last almost no time
38:41
Speaker 2: at all, which makes them totally useless to us.
38:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, as of now.
38:45
Speaker 2: The fact that, like you said, they predicted I think
38:48
Speaker 2: it's going to go up to one hundred and seventy three.
38:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're at one hundred and what eighteen.
38:55
Speaker 2: Makes people like Agnessian just crazy, like they want to
38:58
Speaker 2: find them all. Actually found a couple of those most
39:02
Speaker 2: recent ones that were inducted, I guess in the periodic
39:06
Speaker 2: table in twenty sixteen.
39:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is kind of cool too. Oganessian apparently
39:13
Speaker 1: wanted to name that element stardust in honor of David Bowie,
39:18
Speaker 1: but it didn't fit the naming criteria.
39:20
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, too bad, so sad, Yeah.
39:24
Speaker 1: Too bad. So as far as the sort of the
39:29
Speaker 1: coda on this, Livia is keen to point out that
39:33
Speaker 1: there are gaps in the framework. Still, there are issues.
39:36
Speaker 1: When you look at the periodic table, you needn't only
39:39
Speaker 1: look at the very first one hydrogen at the far
39:43
Speaker 1: left of the table. It's there because it has that
39:45
Speaker 1: one electron, but it is not like any of the
39:49
Speaker 1: rest of its group, because the rest of them are
39:51
Speaker 1: all alkali metals. It's actually more similar to something like chlorine,
39:55
Speaker 1: which is in the second column from the right. But
39:58
Speaker 1: you know, there's still debate on like it's not settled
40:03
Speaker 1: on where things should be placed on these various and
40:06
Speaker 1: there have been you know, there are alternative tables that
40:08
Speaker 1: people have put out over the years with different tweaks,
40:11
Speaker 1: some small, some large, and it's pretty interesting, I think.
40:14
Speaker 2: And there's also that two period section that's always removed
40:18
Speaker 2: from the rest of the periodic table. It's put down
40:22
Speaker 2: below it. Those two sections actually go in that's the
40:26
Speaker 2: f block, right, yeah, the bottom two rows, so they
40:30
Speaker 2: come after I think, bury them and just go all
40:35
Speaker 2: the way over to oh, I can't remember the other one,
40:38
Speaker 2: but imagine that the periodic table was looked like it did,
40:42
Speaker 2: but then the bottom two rows were about twice as
40:45
Speaker 2: long as they are now. It looked weird, and it's
40:49
Speaker 2: because you would take that lower F block and put
40:52
Speaker 2: it into its proper place if you're arranging these things
40:55
Speaker 2: by atomic number. But the reason why the F block
40:59
Speaker 2: is pulled out is because those two rows of elements,
41:03
Speaker 2: the actin needs and lath the needs. I think they
41:06
Speaker 2: might like follow an atomic number in that way, but
41:10
Speaker 2: their properties are totally different from their periods or their groups.
41:15
Speaker 2: And the reason why is because they're the only two
41:18
Speaker 2: groups that have the F position subshell filled by an electron,
41:25
Speaker 2: which completely alters their everything. It's just different than all
41:30
Speaker 2: of the other ones. And it's different enough that they
41:33
Speaker 2: just basically removed it until they can figure out where
41:35
Speaker 2: it should sit, because depending on how you interpret where
41:38
Speaker 2: like how the periodic table should be laid out, they
41:42
Speaker 2: should go here, they should go there, or they should
41:44
Speaker 2: just stay out like they are now.
41:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are some and it's kind of fun to
41:50
Speaker 1: look some of these up if you want to see
41:52
Speaker 1: some kind of cool at the very least just esthetic examples.
41:56
Speaker 1: And then they're not just like, oh, this looks cooler.
41:58
Speaker 1: It makes sense to the person who has put out
42:00
Speaker 1: this whatever alternative or alternate periodic table, Like in nineteen
42:05
Speaker 1: forty nine, Lvia found one from Life magazine that is
42:09
Speaker 1: a spiral, And there are quite a few different spiral
42:12
Speaker 1: or spirillic designs where you have hydrogen at the center
42:16
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like racetrack shape. If you look
42:21
Speaker 1: at any just look up spiral based periodic chart, and
42:24
Speaker 1: they're very nice to look at, I imagine they are
42:28
Speaker 1: much much harder to sort of make sense of and
42:30
Speaker 1: read unless you're the person who made it or a chemist. Yeah,
42:35
Speaker 1: chemists would still probably be like, well, why are you
42:38
Speaker 1: doing it that way?
42:40
Speaker 2: I liked it the other way.
42:42
Speaker 1: Or that three D one that Timothy Stowe came up
42:45
Speaker 1: with that I think physicists are pretty keen on that
42:48
Speaker 1: has three axes of different colors that represent quantum numbers
42:53
Speaker 1: that describe the electrons. But it's you know, if you
42:56
Speaker 1: look at a three D version, that's kind of cool too.
42:59
Speaker 1: But if you find the one, the traditional one confusing
43:02
Speaker 1: as a non chemist, just try looking at any of
43:04
Speaker 1: these other ones. It's really confusing.
43:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's all it is is it's saying, well, actually, no,
43:09
Speaker 2: I think we should arrange them so that they're connected
43:12
Speaker 2: more by this property like electro negativity, or they're shiny
43:16
Speaker 2: where they're pretty. I like this these elements, and so
43:19
Speaker 2: we're going to put them together. These are my favorite elements.
43:22
Speaker 2: It's just kind of like that, and so you can
43:23
Speaker 2: bend them in all sorts of weird shapes.
43:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have my own periodic table I've designed. Oh yeah,
43:29
Speaker 1: and it is just a big black block and then
43:35
Speaker 1: times new roman and yellow lettering in the middle. It says,
43:37
Speaker 1: who gives a right?
43:40
Speaker 2: I would have imagined it was a traditional periodic table,
43:43
Speaker 2: but scratched out with a pen rights violently.
43:46
Speaker 1: No, that's good. I like that better. I'm gonna change mine.
43:48
Speaker 2: I've got one other thing that doesn't. It has a
43:51
Speaker 2: lot to do with everything, but not anything we're going
43:53
Speaker 2: to go into. But there are some especially those elements
43:58
Speaker 2: that don't occur in nature and they have to to
44:00
Speaker 2: create in particle accelerators, but also some that occur in nature,
44:04
Speaker 2: like gold and mercury are two good examples. They have
44:08
Speaker 2: electrons that spin so fast, that are moving at such
44:13
Speaker 2: incredible energies that they actually are like a significant fraction
44:19
Speaker 2: of the speed of light. That's how fast they're going.
44:21
Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter whether you're talking about like a
44:25
Speaker 2: photon or a planet or a black hole or an electron.
44:29
Speaker 2: Anything that has mass and can move at anything like
44:34
Speaker 2: half the speed of light is going to actually bend
44:37
Speaker 2: time and space. And so for some kinds of elements
44:41
Speaker 2: that have relativistic speeds, meaning they're electrons travel close to
44:46
Speaker 2: the speed of light, they have all sorts of freaky
44:48
Speaker 2: dicky properties. It's why gold is gold. Not going to
44:52
Speaker 2: get into that, just trust me. It's why gold is gold.
44:56
Speaker 2: But also it means that if you could go into
44:59
Speaker 2: those atoms and just kind of exists in them as
45:02
Speaker 2: if they were a universe, you would see that time
45:05
Speaker 2: and space was bent compared to how time and space
45:09
Speaker 2: exists outside of those atoms, like on our level. That's
45:12
Speaker 2: what atomic scientists have figured out, and it's actually kind
45:16
Speaker 2: of having a mind breaking effect on the periodic table
45:20
Speaker 2: to an extent amazing. I think so too. That's it, Chuck,
45:25
Speaker 2: we did periodic tables. It's done. You did great.
45:28
Speaker 1: Oh boy, we don't have to do it again.
45:30
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so, I hope not. Yeah, what
45:34
Speaker 2: is this Murphy's law? Well, since I said Murphy's Law,
45:38
Speaker 2: and Chuck laugh because he got the joke. You may
45:41
Speaker 2: not have him. That's okay. That means it's time for
45:44
Speaker 2: listener now.
45:46
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna call this very quick follow up
45:48
Speaker 1: from our Halloween episode. As we record this, it is
45:51
Speaker 1: actually Halloween, so that has just come out today, and
45:56
Speaker 1: we have something from Owen that perhaps explained something that
46:01
Speaker 1: we kind of wondered about. Hey, guys, once again loving
46:04
Speaker 1: the Yearly Spectacular. Figured i'd mentioned my take on what
46:07
Speaker 1: the Hermit meant. Hermit Hermit meant when he said the
46:12
Speaker 1: man's eyes didn't match his mouth. Oh yeah, I think
46:14
Speaker 1: it might have something to do with honesty, like the
46:16
Speaker 1: words of encouragement were somehow disingenuine. That lined up with
46:21
Speaker 1: the idea that the hermit has sort of seen flaws
46:23
Speaker 1: and faults. That makes sense to me. I didn't match
46:26
Speaker 1: his mouth.
46:26
Speaker 2: That's like the best explanation I've heard so far. It's
46:29
Speaker 2: also the only explanation, but it's a good one.
46:31
Speaker 1: I think it's totally it. And Owen says, regardless of
46:34
Speaker 1: whether that's the author's intent, I'm using the description in
46:37
Speaker 1: a song i'm writing. So thanks for the inspiration and
46:40
Speaker 1: in all honesty, the voice work is on point this year.
46:44
Speaker 1: That is from Oen.
46:47
Speaker 2: Makes a Lot, Owen, Here's a here's some inspiration for
46:50
Speaker 2: the musical part of your song.
47:00
Speaker 1: Oh.
47:01
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Owen and write in
47:02
Speaker 2: to explain something to us, we love that kind of thing.
47:06
Speaker 2: You can put it in an email and send it
47:08
Speaker 2: off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
47:14
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
47:17
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
47:21
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.