More generally, the tendency is that of a progressive transition from electron-donation to electron-acceptance as you move from the left to the right on the periodic table. Thus, mix a halogen and an alkali metal and you get a perfect one-to-one match-a salt such as potassium chloride or sodium chloride, aka table salt. Atoms of halogens such as fluorine have an extreme tendency to rip an electron off of other atoms, while alkali atoms have an equally strong tendency to give an electron away. These two families comprise the most reactive of all elements. The significance of the table’s columns is most explicit in the elements on the leftmost column, called the alkali metals (which include lithium, sodium and potassium), and in those on the second column from the right, called the halogens (fluorine, chlorine and their pals). The laws that govern most of the phenomena before our very eyes-everything from cellular metabolism to a laptop’s batteries-are dictated by the chemistry of the elements, but we rarely realize how weird and wonderful the underlying forces are. Most people who know the table well and use it every day-which includes virtually every chemist, biochemist, materials scientist, and lots of engineers-hardly give it a thought, but the predictions of the table are some of the oddest facts in nature. Those elements that share a column are supposed to possess (roughly) similar chemical properties. The periodic table neatly arranges the elements into columns.

I had a chance to remind myself of that conundrum while I reading two terrific books on the subject- The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean, and Periodic Tales, by Hugh Aldersey-Williams-I was doing research to write up the text for ’s Interactive Periodic Table. But something about them remains mysterious to most people, perhaps even to a lot of chemists. The chemical elements-the varieties of atoms existing in nature and even some that are manmade-are an endless source of fascination.

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