Elements in Alphabetical Order:

This is a general Periodic Table of Elements, commonly found in many science rooms. Most tend to look like this page itself; some contain more information. Most elements on this page will be linked to a separate and unique page that gives a description about them. For those that are unfamiliar with periodic tables, the numbers have as much significance as the lettrs do. All links will be through the chemical symbols. The whole numbers above the chemical symbols are atomic numbers. An atomic number lets you know how many protons a particular element has in its nucleus. It also refers to the number of electrons can be found in the elements neutral state. Below the chemical symbol is the atomic weight. Atomic weight is a bit confusing for some, so I'll try to provide as simple a description as possible. Most elements have several isotopes. To determine the atomic weight, all of the isotopes are multipled by how frequently they are found on earth. They are then added together and divided by the number of total isotopes. The number is then put into a ratio with the calculated mass of a single atom of ¹²C (carbon-12) (The little number in front of the chemical symbol is the number of protons and neutrons. ¹²C means 6 protons and 6 neutrons.). Here is a sample of a calculation:

For this example, I choose hydrogen, which has two naturally occuring isotopes on earth, ¹H and ²H respectively. ¹H is the most common between the two, and its natural abundance is about 99.9885%. It has a mass of 1.007825035 amu (atomic mass units). ²H is found naturally at about 0.0115%, and has a mass of 2.014101779 amu. Nw that we have those numbers, we do some multiplication. For ¹H, we multiply the mass by the frequency:

1.007825035 * (.999885) = 1.007709135. This number looks right because ¹H is found so frequently. Then, we do the same thing for ²H:

2.014101779 * (.000115) = 0.000231622. Again, this looks right because there isn't a lot of ²H found on earth. We take these two numbers, and add them together:

1.007709135 + 0.000231622 = 1.007940757.

Therefore, the atomic weight of hydrogen is 1.00794 (1.008 is rounded off).

Another important aspect to this site is the color coding. As you can probably tell, the table is split up into three distinct colors, and each has its own significance. Although there are many different classifications for groups of elements, the three most basic ones are how I've arranged them on this page. Elements with a blue background are nonmetals; elements in yellow are metals, and elements in green are metalloids or transitive metals. This last group are considered transitive forms because they have aspects that are both metallic and nonmetallic.