A large periodic table was placed on the main façade of Sciences Building in the University of Jaén (Spain) in November 2007 to welcome everybody (1). This table was inaugurated by the rector of the University of Jaén and sponsored by Telefónica, a Spanish telephone company (2). It was done in honor of Mendeleev on the 100th anniversary of his death and for the “Spanish Year of Science”. The design was based on the drawings of the Spanish chemist Antonio Marchal Ingrain. His drawings also inspired the postage stamp launched in February 2007 in Spain and presented in this Journal (3).
Figure 1. Artistic Table Periodic inaugurated in Jaén, Spain in honor of Mendeleev. Colored spaces indicate the ground-state electron configurations (blue: s-orbitals; red: d-transition elements; yellow: p-orbitals; green: f-transition elements). The elements whose properties were predicted by Mendeleev are white.
The artistic mural, shown in Figure 1, was prepared by the local craftswoman Dionisia Rodríguez Cárdenas. It is composed of 162 ceramic tiles, each 20 × 30 cm, reaching a final dimension of 2.8 × 3.6 m. Apart from the traditional information, which students are familiar with such as the atomic number, atomic weight, and the chemical symbol of the element, each of the ceramic tiles incorporates information about the meaning of the element name in Latin or Greek, the year, and the name of the person or group of people who discovered or isolated it (4). Thus, the mural can be presented to students as an open book, full of stories and characters, about scientists. In addition, the significance of the colored tiles, in accordance with the ground-state electron configurations and the elements whose properties were predicted Mendeleev, can be used as teaching tools to introduce students to electronic and historical topics such as those suggested in ref 3. AcknowledgmentI sincerely thank the Universidad de Jaén and Telefónica for their support. Literature Cited- Universidad de Jaén Periodic Table. (accessed Aug 2008).
- Telefónica International Home Page (accessed Aug 2008).
- Pinto, G. J. Chem. Educ. 2007, 84, 1919.
- WebElements Periodic Table (accessed Aug 2008).
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