C H E M I S T R Y Why the Symbols? Some History A Song About Chemistry And… A Chemistry Cartoon C H E M I S T R Y

During the Middle Ages in Europe and the far East, Alchemists sought to find the Philosophers Stone, a substance that would transform base metals like lead, etc into gold (the most precious of all metals). This would bring them riches and glory from their King. Other properties associated with the Philosophers stone was it’s ability to grant the owner eternal life! It was a quest based in secrecy and treachery!

Because of the secrecy and spying (first for industrial espionage Because of the secrecy and spying (first for industrial espionage?) the alchemists used symbols to represent the various substances they used…Each alchemist had his own “chemical language” Mercury Copper Gold Iron Lead Silver Tin

The many faces of Gold… While they never did find the Philosopher’s Stone, they did begin discovering and naming chemical elements…a fact that lead us to a more standardized method of representing elements and the formation of the periodic table….

Chemistry There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium, And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium, Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium, And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium, And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium, And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium. There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium, And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium, There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium. There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium, And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium, And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium, Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and caesium. And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium, Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium. There's sulphur, californium and fermium, berkelium, And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium, And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium, And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium. These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered. Chemistry

So why do we still use symbols today in chemistry So why do we still use symbols today in chemistry? Well… why do you think?

Think about the following table… English French Latin German Symbol Silver argent argentum silber Ag Gold or aurum gold Au Iron fer ferrum eisen Fe Copper cuivre cuprum kupfer Cu The symbol is international, regardless of language. The first letter of the symbol is always a capital letter. The symbol is always made up of 2 or 3 letters.