This tweet came through my feed today:
Twitter user @MeijaJuris noted that this image is a bit out of date, given that nihonium (element 113, Nh) shares its abbreviation with New Hampshire. I wanted to see how to use Mathematica to update the diagram.
Continue readingToday I’m silver years old, as informed to me by my periodic table.
One item on my bucket list has been to learn how to make a video game. I figured forced isolation due to the pandemic gave me the time I needed to dive into this project. After 100 hours, I was able to produce Chicken in the lab! where you – the chicken – need to pick up the elements (in order of atomic number) that have been scattered across the lab by an evil Biology Professor.
I’ll have a link to the game once I get it all packaged up for distribution for the 1 or 2 of you daring enough to try it out. Meanwhile, check out this video commentary about my experience with the Unreal Engine 4. You can just jump to 5:55 and see gameplay if you’d like.
Recently, I performed an experiment. Together with one of my faculty colleagues, a pair of chemistry students, and the historian for the Western Monroe Historical Society (who also happens to be my wife), we dressed up in Victorian-style costumes and told a story.
In order to keep the audience from running away during Act I, our Conversations on Victorian Chemistry performance promises cupcakes. And why not. It is National Chemistry Week after all, and we are having the performance on Mole Day, it makes sense to have a Periodic Table of Cupcakes.
I made a place mat for the cupcakes. The elements are depicted by an image which represents when the element was discovered (before Mendeleev, during the period covered in our play, or after the death of Marie Curie). The images will be covered by the cupcake, so feasters won’t know which time period their element comes from until they take it. Also, since we have six volunteer bakers, they won’t know which flavor their cupcake is. Therein lies the excitement of discovering their element/cupcake.