A Periodic Table Visualizing the Year & Country in Which Each Element Was Discovered

On the “Data is Beau­ti­ful” sub­red­dit, a user named Udzu post­ed a visu­al­i­sa­tion of the Peri­od­ic Table of Ele­ments that high­lights the year and coun­try in which each ele­ment was dis­cov­ered. You can view it in a larg­er for­mat here. Elab­o­rat­ing on how the graph­ic was made, he adds (his words, not mine, fol­low):

  • The year and coun­try of dis­cov­ery are tak­en from Wikipedia and are based on when the ele­ment was first observed or pre­dict­ed rather than when it was first iso­lat­ed.
  • The pri­or­i­ty for the dis­cov­er­ies is often con­tentious. The visu­al­i­sa­tion uses the list­ings cur­rent­ly in the Wikipedia arti­cle, with no claim as to their accu­ra­cy.
  • The coun­try is typ­i­cal­ly both the cit­i­zen­ship of the dis­cov­er­er and the loca­tion of dis­cov­ery. Excep­tions include Hafni­um (dis­cov­ered by a Dutch and Hun­gar­i­an duo in Copen­hagen) and Radon (dis­cov­ered by a British and Amer­i­can duo in Mon­tre­al); these are list­ed under loca­tion.
  • Coun­tries and flags are of the mod­ern equiv­a­lents when appro­pri­ate: e.g. Rus­sia rather than the USSR, UK rather than England/Scotland, and Mex­i­co rather than New Spain.
  • The ety­molo­gies are also tak­en from Wikipedia.
  • The leg­ends con­tain sum­ma­ry counts of the data. Good work, Swe­den.

Ranked in order, the UK could lay claim to 19 ele­ments, Swe­den and Ger­many to 18 each, France to 16, and Rus­sia and the Unit­ed States to 11 each.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Peri­od­ic Table of Endan­gered Ele­ments: Visu­al­iz­ing the Chem­i­cal Ele­ments That Could Van­ish Before You Know It

nter­ac­tive Peri­od­ic Table of Ele­ments Shows How the Ele­ments Actu­al­ly Get Used in Mak­ing Every­day Things

The Peri­od­ic Table of Ele­ments Scaled to Show The Ele­ments’ Actu­al Abun­dance on Earth

Peri­od­ic Table Bat­tle­ship!: A Fun Way To Learn the Ele­ments

“The Peri­od­ic Table Table” — All The Ele­ments in Hand-Carved Wood

World’s Small­est Peri­od­ic Table on a Human Hair

“The Peri­od­ic Table of Sto­ry­telling” Reveals the Ele­ments of Telling a Good Sto­ry

Chem­istry on YouTube: “Peri­od­ic Table of Videos” Wins SPORE Prize


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Comments (3)
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  • Andreu says:

    There are sev­er­al huge mis­takes in that table.

    For instance:

    * Wol­frami­um or Tung­sten was first dis­cov­ered and iso­lat­ed in Spain by Juan José Elhu­yar and Faus­to Elhu­yar in (1783)

    * Vana­di­um was dis­cov­ered in Andrés Manuel del Río in 1803, a Spaniard

  • Gary says:

    Andreu Vana­di­um I par­tial­ly agree: for starters this peri­od­ic table shows where the ele­ments were dis­cov­ered and Vana­di­um was found in Mex­i­co so it is tech­ni­cal­ly cor­rect, more­over Andrés Manuel del Río was Span­ish-Mex­i­can so if the table was show­ing where the peo­ple who dis­cov­ered it were from it would still be, in part accu­rate.

  • mikel says:

    U hate spain or some­thing? The only two mis­takes were against spain. Manuel del rio was span­ish as he was born in spain and span­ish blood. Wol­framio is ofi­cial­ly span­ish.

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