"The Periodic Kingdom"
by P.W. Atkins, Ph. D.

P.W. Atkins subtitled his book, The Periodic Kingdom, "a journey into the land of the chemical elements." And that describes this wonderful little book perfectly. Dr. Atkins is one of, if not the, preeminent physical chemists in the world today. He takes his wealth of chemical knowledge and reduces it into simplistic, but accurate, terms that even non-scientific people can understand.

Chemistry is the science of the sublime. It embraces small, limited energy changes in its quest to create everything in the universe. Nothing that exists today is constructed of matter that is not controlled by chemistry and the basic building blocks of chemistry, the elements. Shown below is an image of the Periodic Table:

Basic Geography

For purposes of his book, Atkins divides the table into geographic features. This geography gives rise to the name of the book..."The Periodic Kingdom." The table is divided as follows:

1. Groups IA and IIA are referred to as "Western Rectangle." This area contains the Alkali Metals and the Alkaline Earth Metals...elements of activity, some of them with extreme activity (i.e. Sodium).
   
2. Groups IIIB through IIB are entitled the "Isthmus." With good reason, these groups connect the "Western Rectangle" to the, as we will find out, the "Eastern Rectangle." Atkins also sometimes attaches elements 13, 31-32, 49-51 and 81-84, then referring to this region as the "Western Desert." This area comprises all of the metals. Metals contain a wide array of chemical richness and are thus very important to the makeup of our earth and our universe.
   
3. Groups IIIA through VIIA and 0 are named the "Eastern Rectangle." The Eastern Rectangle contains the "softer side" or our element construction. However, it also contains Carbon...the basis for all life as we know it.
   
4. The Lanthanides and Actinides constitute the "Southern Island." This island contains many elusive, dangerous chemicals and is not well researched. It is however an area of great activity, as many scientists strive to further our knowledge of these elements.
   

He also talks of the search for "Atlantis," an island of chemical stability somewhere disconnected from the continent of existing elements. From the rhythms and periodicity of the table, we can extrapolate where some of these stable elements could possibly exist. For example, on the far east side of the table is the Noble Gases. An element that fell into this group would potentially be very stable, an element with an Atomic Number of 118. (Interesting side note, in some research on the Internet, I think I saw a reference to element 118...is it an island of stability...I do not know, but below I provide some links to Periodic Table references on the web...look for it!)

Some Products of the Regions

Atkins next topic concerns the products of each of his geographic regions. For example, Copper was found early in our existence and gave rise to the Bronze Age, Titanium gives us the ability to go to the sky in an efficient manner, and Iron...ohhhh, Iron...formed the basis of the Steel Age (and the Industrial Revolution!). All of these elements lie in the Isthmus and Western Desert. Other examples rise from the Eastern Rectangle. Examples such as Oxygen, the great giver of life; Nitrogen, fertilizer and enabler of life; and, of course, Carbon, the foundational element of our life.

Physical Geography

From this general geography, Atkins goes into explaining the "lay of the land" of the periodic table. For example, he talks about the view of the landscape as it relates to Atomic Mass. Generally, the mass of the elements increases as you move from East to West and North to South. Thus, the lightest element, Hydrogen, would reside in the Northeast corner (now Hydrogen is an anomoly, as many of you know), but the trend is, generally, true. He then describes the physical geography in terms of the diameters of the elements. In a broad sense, the diameter increases from North to South and East to West. Again, this is only, generally true.

History

The second phase of the book discusses the history of the Periodic Table. Atkins discusses the history of discovery and how we found out about the elements themselves. He then moves to a quick chapter on the naming of elements...this simple area contains many "hotbeds" of discussion, everyone wants a chemical named after them! Then we move to the origins of the elements and how they actually came into being from the time of the "Big Bang" through all of the evolutionary steps necessary to achieve the richness of elemental diversity that we have (this chapter exceeds expectations and is exceptionally interesting!). Finally, Atkins discusses the "Cartographers" of the Periodic Table, finishing with Mendeleev (the man that finally put the chart into the form that we recognize today).

Government and Institutions

In this section, Atkins starts to get at the whys behind the Periodic Table. He brings the reader to an understanding of the rhythms of chemistry through exploration of four things:

1. Atoms and the physical makeup of atoms, particularly focusing on the nucleus. He covers the history and discovery of the structure of the atom that is generally considered to be true today (i.e. with a nucleus of protons and neutrons and a "cloud" of electrons). He discusses the voyage from ignorance to knowledge and why so many earlier attempts at mapping of this "kingdom of elements" failed...due to an inability to understand the inner workings of atoms.
   
2. Electrons and Atomic Orbitals...this area focuses on how electrons behave and how they help to make up what the atom becomes. He talks about electron clouds and atomic orbitals (not orbits...we cannot accurately say where an electron will be at any point of time, only the probability of where it will be at that point in time), then moving to the shapes of the different orbitals (s, p, d and f orbitals). Finally, he moves to Bohr's building up principle and Pauli's exclusion principle. These two principles allow chemists to understand how an atom places atoms into orbitals...this basic understanding then leads to more important knowledge.
   
3. How the inner and outer workings of atoms explains the periodicity and rhythm of the periodic table. This needs further basic explanation before you delve into it...READ THE BOOK!
   
4. The ability of atoms to form combinations. How we have two types of bonds between atoms: ionic and covalent, what the differences are between the two, how the differences determine the type of chemical and many other fascinating parts of chemistry. Inclduing touching on the ability of Carbon to form resonance structures, which explains Carbon's ability to support life. But, again, a full understanding of this section is only possible from reading the details of the book.

BUY IT! READ IT! ENJOY IT! If you have any scientific curiosity, this book makes the science of chemistry very understandable. With formal training in Chemistry, I missed several important concepts. This book made them clear. This book gives you a feel and taste for chemistry that is often missing...enjoyable reading that conveys important and, sometimes, difficult concepts in an easy to understand manner. I believe this book should be required reading for all Chemistry 101 students.

This book is in a group called the "Science Masters" series. I plan to read other volumes in this series and will report on these other books.

Some Links to Periodic Table Websites

Chemical Elements.com...an interactive Periodic Table

Yogi's Behemoth Periodic Table of Elements

Chemicool Periodic Table