Theo Gray: The Elements

Elementary particles.
#
The world of electron.
#
But maybe these electrons are World,
where there are five continents:
the art,
knowledge,
wars,
thrones
and the memory of forty centuries.
/ Valery Brusov. /
#
‘ . . , to start with every molecule as s living thing, ..’
/ Samuel Butler. /
===.
Is every electron, atom, molecule a living thing?
Does Every electron, atom, molecule have consciousness ?
Molecular biology and molecular evolution.
Can an electron, atom, molecule evolve?
Does evolution of life begin on electron’s ( atom’s ) level?
===.

This is bullshit! And this man is very dishonest. A periodic table table has been produced in Austria since the 60s, where newly discovered elements have been added on the fly. There are similar companies in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden that produce a "periodic coffee table" and other tables on order. Smart-elements.com is probably the most beautiful producer of elements, and I've bought some acrylic cubes there myself. (They also provide a photography service)

I'm European, that's why I mention these which I'm more familiar with. I will however bet that there are American periodic tables produced and photography etc. I'm not here to bash this guy, the video or his website - but don't take credit for something you haven't done. Your work is great, but you're not the first nor the best.

I've been working with Adobe Software for many years, and I have made controllable animations in InDesign personally. I'm not completely sure when this video was recorded, but I even believe that Adobe had interactive PDF files, which is different from "print" PDF. You can embedd movies, flash animations, flash games and many other objects!

DISHONEST.

"Quickly: My point was that I certainly would not expect most parents to build of their own periodic table of the elements."

Neither would I. I would expect them to do much better than that.

"This is quite a rant. I'm not sure why you've felt compelled to make it."

Because I see the American eduction system and many American parents fail their kids. I think that's a pretty good reason to get upset about. When you see states and federal agencies cut education spending while giving billions in free money to the ultra-rich and oil companies, you are beginning to wonder if you are living in a country that has a suicidal streak. At least I do.

Now about the author: maybe he misspoke, maybe he is simply too eager showing off his technical savvy and accomplishment to actually assume that some people will critically consider the factual reality of his claims about inventing any of this, which he clearly hasn't.

Since I do not have an apologetic streak, I do not feel like defending him by making assumptions about what he might have said when he made these rather poorly worded comments. He is a grownup who has to know when he is telling the truth and when he is lying. If he has done research on the subject, he has to know about the long history of this thing and about the work of others which he seems to be brushing aside like it was nothing. OTOH, if he has not done research, why should I trust the information he has compiled in there?

Am I generally offended by material written for a general or mostly younger audience? Very often I am. The level of scientific accuracy in many of these publications is far from acceptable. I understand that much of this is not entirely in bad faith but a result from long agonizing about how to simplify to widen the audience... but much of that is probably driven by publishers who need to make money. It is certainly not driven by pedagogical needs. Kids in the past could learn this stuff just fine without electronic hand holding. I don't think that has changed. An inorganic chemistry textbook for beginners written fifty years ago would probably be just as good as a guide as one written yesterday. Of course, that doesn't make any money to anyone, today.

Me: "You cannot seriously expect most parents to have the available time and effort it would take to do such a thing?"

You: "If you don't have time for your kid's education, why have kids to begin with?"

Quickly: My point was that I certainly would not expect most parents to build of their own periodic table of the elements. Judging by the rest of your comment neither would you. As for the rest:

"But why would you even want to have a sample of arsenic at home?"

"A good portion of the elements in the periodic table belong only in the hands of the experienced chemist and technologist, many others are kind of boring looking. "

"Do you really think that looking at a rotating gold chain beats the experience of holding a large piece of gold in your hand?"

"My point is that we need to show kids more REAL STUFF, not less, at an earlier age."

Et cetera, et cetera...

This is quite a rant. I'm not sure why you've felt compelled to make it. I don't really disagree with any of this, but I fail see how it negates the idea that buying your child an introductory text on the periodic table can contribute to a nascent interest in the science of chemistry. That is to say, as an educational supplement. Did I say an education should stop there? NO. Of course not. I am not sure how or why you would infer that as my meaning.

Please: Having skimmed the book myself, it is obvious Gray has written it for a general (read: younger) audience. Something about that seems to offend you. At the beginning of this video he does say that he could not find other evidence of a physical "table" of elements and he is quite obviously mistaken. But perhaps he was referring to the accessibility of the greater presentation? His website is certainly more accessible than the others you've listed, as you yourself have implied, perhaps again because unlike these others it is intended for a general audience. May I suggest that much of your intellectual outrage over this video seems to be misplaced?

"We may have differing ideas on the meaning of accessibility, Periergeia. Compiling a physical collection of the actual elements may be an excellent idea for an educator but it is not practical for most parents. "

But why would you even want to have a sample of arsenic at home? Or a vial with mercury? Antimony? Cadmium (you might actually have some of that!)? Would you like your kid to touch a piece of pure Beryllium, a metal that has to be handled with safety precautions when used in the machine shop? It's unavoidable for physicists to deal with it, but everybody who HAS to handle it professionally hates it. I have, yet, to meet a chemist who loves handling bromine, chlorine and, even worse, fluorine... so why is it so important to have a sample of that, or lest that, look at the image of one? Like I said, universities have these samples, and so do some high schools... but they are rarely used to teach.

A good portion of the elements in the periodic table belong only in the hands of the experienced chemist and technologist, many others are kind of boring looking.

But to give you another example from geology, I used to have a large folio with illustrations of fossils and dinosaurs. It was a pretty good book and like most kids I was heavily into this stuff for a while. But what really got me excited wasn't the book. It was the rocks in the neighborhood. We used to live in a region that was located on Devonian slates. Wherever you picked up a rock, you would find small fossils on the inside. We kids used to literally sit on the ground for hours, banging these things against each other, finding "treasures" that hadn't seen the light for four hundred million years or so! I was lucky... other people will have to drive to the closest fossil part for that "adventure".

"You cannot seriously expect most parents to have the available time and effort it would take to do such a thing?"

If you don't have time for your kid's education, why have kids to begin with? The world is surely not running short of people and there is no obvious reason why one has to have kids unless one can give them the best start in life. Education does not start at school and most of it does not happen at school, either. It all starts at home. Not all parents are equally prepared for that.

That's not my personal opinion, by the way... it's what all scientifically educated people I know do... they take time to teach basic science (and music and whatever else they know) to their kids. Why? Because they love both knowledge and their kids and they know that they make a great combination. One does not have to expect the kid to become a scientist or anything specific... but one can show them the fun stuff, anyway.

Now, my parents didn't have a science education. But they did spend as much time and money as they could spare on me getting to see science in museums and libraries. They let me have as many books and as much equipment for my experiments at home as I wanted and as was economically possible. Today the internet would be my playground. There is so much GREAT professional stuff out there for FREE! None of it came "free", by the way. It was paid for with the research budgets of the world and the fees for college and university education.

My links, by the way, were not meant to be shown to kids (although I would have enjoyed them immensely even as a kid), they simply put Mr. Gray's statements into perspective of what is out there and what isn't... he made claims about having something unique (after searching the web long and far... please!)... a new sliced bread, so to speak. And I was merely proving that, indeed, he does not. Neither do his statements appear particularly professional.

My point is that we need to show kids more REAL STUFF, not less, at an earlier age. Of course, a kid who grew up on early morning tv commercials for toys and HM stuff between cheaply made battling robot flicks... there is all hope lost. But honestly, of you look at the amount of money spent on throwaway toys based on a typical American yard sale, I would say that one can easily establish a professional chemical laboratory at home for that. Or a mechanical workshop for the future ME... or buy a professional instrument for the future musician. And if all you want is for your kid to be a car technician, for God's sake, buy them an old car with an engine to play with when they are old enough to know not to stick their finger into the belts when the engine is running... and guess what... that's what a physicist friend of mine did for his own sons when they were old enough to hold the tools. Dad and sons had endless hours of fun with that car, tuning the engine, making changes... bonding over a common interest.

We may have differing ideas on the meaning of accessibility, Periergeia. Compiling a physical collection of the actual elements may be an excellent idea for an educator but it is certainly not practical for most parents. (You cannot seriously expect most parents to contribute the time and effort it would take to do such a thing? In addition to accessibility there is also something to be said for realistic expectations.)

Gray's book is not just an e-book, it is also an actual paper book and appears to be a fine reference text to have in a child's library, and a suitable introduction to the study of the periodic table. http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Visua...5672592&sr=8-2

You're free to disagree but at the very least pick up a copy of the book and look at it yourself before throwing out another half dozen links that would cause most interested ten-year-olds' eyes to glaze over and turn them off to the idea of studying chemistry forever.

"Smug up the place all you want, Periergeia, but there is something to be said for accessibility in teaching children about science."

What's smug about imagining taking your kid to the local jeweler to show them gold, platinum, rhodium, silver, titanium, carbon in it's most beautiful modification and a host of natural minerals?

Do you really think that looking at a rotating gold chain beats the experience of holding a large piece of gold in your hand? It is very heavy and one of the most unusual experiences I had personally. When you handle it for the first time, it's just something special. And I am not talking about the monetary value.

Speaking of an "experience", let your kids smell some crude oil, once, it will put the pictures from the gulf in a totally new light.

And speaking of smell... letting a kid melt a piece of sulfur in a test tube, see it burn, smell the reaction products, let it turn to its plastic modification by quenching it in water... now that's an experience. Beats looking at a picture of sulfur hands down. And have you ever been next to a five story high heap of sulfur in a chemical plant? Wow...

Besides these rare experiences, I could give you hundreds of things you can do with your kids in the realm of science for no or little money that beat giving them an e-book like this, especially if it is made by someone who claims (proudly) never to have seen such a pedagogical tool (a collection of elements in glass bottles) that can be found in pretty much every institution of higher learning in Europe that teaches advanced chemistry. I have personally seen maybe half a dozen of these. They are still around, they are being made by several companies. And let's not speak about the strategy of buying chemicals on eBay... there are plenty of companies who will sell chemically well characterized elements.

See e.g.

http://www.alfa.com/en/gp160w.pgm

If you buy from these guys, you know what you get and you will likely be getting it in a safe way. With some things in the periodic table, that alone would be worth the extra money.

Why so cranky? Isn't it the case that most programs on Fora are basically advertisements for someone's book? Who cares, as long as the presentation is interesting and informative?

For what it's worth, I saw Theo Gray's book in a bookstore a few months ago. It looks engaging, with beautiful photos -- an accessible reference to have around for kids, especially younger ones. And I mean that as a compliment. (Smug up the place all you want, Periergeia, but there is something to be said for accessibility in teaching children about science.)

I am afraid that I must disappoint Mr. Gray. His idea is about a century late. The "periodic table table" can be found in most old universities and I have even seen some rather complete collections in some high schools in Europe as part of the chemistry lab. And these collections are still in production today:

http://www.smart-elements.com

With photos:

http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/display/8057734

There must be hundreds of web implementations of the periodic table with basic information about an element... I don't even dare to look.

One can't build a complete physical collection, anyway, because the heaviest known elements in the latest versions of the table can only be synthesized in modern nuclear physics experiments as single nuclei which last only fractions of a second.

Apropos nuclei... the scientifically more interesting tables are the isotope tables:

http://nucleardata.nuclear.lu.se/nucleardata/toi/
http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/

etc...

OK... so what did he do? He THOUGHT he was original because he DIDN'T KNOW what was out there. And then he claims the fame for building a pretty website.

But maybe the interested students would rather like to know where REAL CHEMISTS get their information from? Well, one rather interesting database is called "Beilstein", i.e. "The Oxford English Dictionary" of the organic chemist.

Having said that, why in the world would you take your information about elements from a guy who thinks he has invented sliced bread and who is basically only interested in web development, but not in chemistry?

Thanks for the half-hour commercial on your book. (Why is this on Fora?)