1. 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

3. 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!

4. 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

5. 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….

6. 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

7. 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?

8. 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.