Remarks
Why the Periodic Table of Elements Is More Important Than Ever
Mendeleev’s 150-year-old periodic table has become the menu for a world hungry for material benefits.
The inventor Buckminster Fuller once described technological progress as “ephemeralization.” Sunbeams and breezes are replacing coal and oil as energy sources, brands are more important than buildings to corporations, and fiat money has supplanted gold and silver. So it seems reasonable to conclude that the periodic table of elements—that wonky taxonomy of physical stuff such as copper, iron, mercury, and sulfur—is passé, no more relevant than a manual typewriter.
Except exactly the opposite is true. Matter still matters. And on the 150th anniversary of the periodic table’s formulation by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, it’s more important than it’s ever been.