However, their eyes were drawn upwards with the traditional orientation and downwards for the upside-down version.Įllen explains “In both views people were drawn to look at the distinct part of the shape - the ‘legs’ of the table or the lighter elements. Their results showed that participants had a slight preference for the traditional orientation and, in both orientations, people spent the most time looking in the centre. To avoid any preconceptions all the lettering was removed so participants were looking at blank squares. Ellen and Alexis asked participants to rate silhouettes of periodic tables and at the same time recorded where the participants looked using eye-tracking. Surprisingly, no one appears to have tried doing this before, in the past 150 years!īut how would people view upside-down periodic tables compared to the traditional one? To investigate this, Martyn enlisted the help of two experimental Psychologists – his daughter Dr Ellen Poliakoff from the University of Manchester and her collaborator Dr Alexis Makin from the University of Liverpool. Martyn and Sam suggest that turning the periodic table upside-down will be making the filling of the electron shells easier to understand. In Mendeleev’s table, these fill from the top to the bottom while most everyday objects like beakers, baths and waste bins fill from the bottom up.” The current layout also makes it harder to understand one of the key concepts underlying the structure of the periodic table, namely the order of the filling of electron shells. The teacher rarely mentions any of the elements that are typically closest to the children’s eye-level and talks mostly about those high up near the top of the table. Sir Martyn says: “Think of the periodic table from the viewpoint of children looking for the first time at Mendeleev’s table hanging on the classroom wall. Putting the lighter elements at the bottom and heavy ones at the top would mean most of the properties also increase from bottom to top, including atomic number, atomic mass, atomic radius, maximum oxidation state and reactivity. Nottingham chemists Sir Martyn Poliakoff and Dr Sam Tang suggest that by turning the periodic table through 180 degrees on a horizontal axis would make the Table more like a traditional graph so that values increase from bottom to top. Hon.Could turning the periodic table on its head make some important aspects easier to understand and enthuse more people to study chemistry? This question is posed in an article published in Nature Chemistry by chemists and psychologists at Nottingham, Manchester and Liverpool universities.Ģ019 marks the 150 th anniversary of the first publication of Mendeleev’s periodic table, which has become the accepted way of arranging the elements and of predicting new ones – but is there a better way of presenting this information for a new and in particular a young audience? It is used in schools and universities across the UK and around the world. The channel is one of the most popular science-focused sites on the internet, with over 800,000 subscribers and 136 million views. This will be a special edition of part of the Periodic Table of Videos YouTube series. Nottingham's world-renowned science and social media sensation, Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff will be joined by Minister for Universities and Science, Jo Johnson MP to take part in a live science experiment in front of the Houses of Parliament (no gunpowder, we promise). Description Sir Martyn Poliakoff Ministerial Periodic Table Live About the event Location Old Palace Yard Date(s) Tuesday 25th October 2016 (08:30-09:00) Contact For more information, email Charlotte Anscombe (The University of Nottingham).
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