FYI: New member added

[Rene]

Dear colleagues

I received a request from Barbara Doris to join our list and have added her accordingly.

Barbara wrote:

I'd like to join to engage in thoughtful discussions on the history, structure, and philosophy of the periodic table, and to learn from others who share a deep interest in its scientific and conceptual foundations.

Welcome on board, Barbara.

René

[johnmarks9]

From my point of view (a retired shrink!), Barbara, the PT classifies atoms which, from a psychological point of view, form one of the two boundaries of our evolved experience. The other is the finite speed of light which we had evolved assuming it infinite.

Of course, the quantum atom was way beyond any visual acuity we ever had, just as the speed of light was. Kant pointed out that we have invented our phenomenal world to survive, not necessarily to represent reality (in the Kantian sense of his noumena).
It is moot to ask how relevant to our survival is knowledge of the PT today? Clearly it had not been relevant until 1869 when Mendeleyev published his PT.

Has it made a difference?

Arguably it has, with the human population now at eight billion.

Because it has enabled unprecedented control of the material world.

My two cents . . .

John 

[Julio gutierrez samanez]

How nice, welcome colleague Barbara Doris, what nationality are you and if you can share your published works with us, so we know about your activity.

Julio Antonio Gutiérrez Samanez
Cusco, Perú

Libre de virus.www.avg.com

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[Rene]

On 10 Oct 2025, at 02:38, johnmarks9 <johnm...@hotmail.com> wrote:

From my point of view (a retired shrink!), Barbara, the PT classifies atoms which, from a psychological point of view, form one of the two boundaries of our evolved experience. The other is the finite speed of light which we had evolved assuming it infinite.

Of course, the quantum atom was way beyond any visual acuity we ever had, just as the speed of light was. Kant pointed out that we have invented our phenomenal world to survive, not necessarily to represent reality (in the Kantian sense of his noumena).
It is moot to ask how relevant to our survival is knowledge of the PT today? Clearly it had not been relevant until 1869 when Mendeleyev published his PT.

Has it made a difference?

Arguably it has, with the human population now at eight billion.

Because it has enabled unprecedented control of the material world.

My two cents . . .

Thanks John. Good post, that.

I like how you frame the PT and the finite speed of light as the [?] two perceptual boundaries of our evolved experience. It captures a tension between what our senses evolved to register and what science has revealed to be real but imperceptible. What you wrote here might have read more fluidly without the “the,” since there are surely other kinds of perceptual limits as well—but as an illustrative pairing, it’s a good one.

I’m not so sure, though, about your line that “it [the PT] had not been relevant until 1869.” There was, for example, Lavoisier’s 1789 list of “simple substances,” Döbereiner’s triads in the 1820s, and the growing use of atomic weights—all of which gave early philosophical and experimental momentum to the idea of periodicity.

Likewise, I’m a bit cautious about “Has it made a difference? Arguably it has…because it has enabled unprecedented control of the material world.” Developments in the materials world are ongoing, and while the PT was certainly one of the great enablers, it was part of a much wider set of advances.

The 1800s saw breakthroughs in electrochemistry (isolating new metals), coal-gas and alkali industries, synthetic dyes, improved furnaces, and—crucially—far better measurement. Spectroscopy (1859–60?) and standardised atomic weights (post-Karlsruhe, 1860) provided the flood of reliable data that Mendeleev and Meyer could then organise.

The PT then paid it back: it facilitated the prediction of missing elements (gallium, scandium, germanium), structured chemical education and research, and became a scaffold for the late-19th-century chemical industries—fertilisers, dyes, pharmaceuticals, and alloys.

So yes, in a sense, the PT made a difference by providing a more organised perspective on the material world—but as part of concurrent and ongoing developments rather than as a lone enabler of unprecedented control. Its emergence and impact seem less like a single revolution and more like part of a larger dialogue between discovery and application—between seeing nature and shaping it. Might that be where its true significance lies?

René

PS: I see the population of the world in 1869 was about 1.3 billion, so the current figure of 8.1 billion represents more than a six-fold increase in just over 150 years—apparently driven by advancements in healthcare (biochemistry → PT) and living conditions (materials → PT) that have reduced death rates and increased life expectancy.

PPS: I see that in 1900 the cost of a first class stamp was 2 cents. These days the cost is ~70–80¢, so two cents has lost about 97% of its value.

[johnmarks9]

Dear René,

Thanx for your appreciation.

I  agree that there are probably many perceptual boundaries. One that comes to mind is Richard Dawkins´s "electromagnetic burqa". If you consider the e/m spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays and then our retinal sensitivity to the narrow gap between infra-red and ultra-violet, Dawkins likens the gap to the eye-slit of a burqa. If this is the usual one inch, then the burqa would need to be 26 kms in height! 

And, of course, we´re insensitive to magnetism and radioactivity (at least background levels!) . . . and what else is beyond our evolutionary experience?

And you´re certainly right about Mendeleyev 1869 being just a convenient summit in a long progress through Boyle, Cavendish, Lavoisier, Davy, Dalton, Döbereiner, etc., etc. etc. He certainly stood on the shoulders of giants.
Electrochemistry and spectroscopy illustrate the importance of technical innovation also. The spectroscope and the cyclotron were probably the most important tools in filling out and completing the PT (Moseley´s and Soddy´s contributions notwithstanding) and doubtless further discoveries will increase applications. From the other end (our brains), the electrenkephalogram (EEG) looks set to interpret brain rhythms in ways that may lead to insights into how we "see" (i.e. construct) our worlds - including the PT.

John

PS The financial pundits are predicting that my 2¢ has a long way to fall yet. They´re talking about an economic collapse on the scale of post-WW1 Germany, when you´ll need a barrow-load of $$$ just to buy a loaf of bread . . .

J.