Demo: Periodic Table

[Scott_Sauyet]

@TW_Tones

@Scott_Sauyet

I’d like to know the origin of the CSV data that you started from. Do you recall where that was?

• Not off the top of my head, but I am looking for it

Thanks. Don’t worry too much. All the information here is in the public domain. It’s interesting that I found a number of anomalies in the input data; that seems strange these days. At some point, I’m going to have to ask a chemist to look over the raw data, because I have to wonder if there are still problems lurking.

@TW_Tones

This could get very big so using the minimum number of bytes per compound may make sense,

I’m not planning on having too many. My starting point would be the ones mentioned in
Compounds.json (1.5 KB). It’s taken from the table of contents for The 100 Most Important Chemical Compounds: A Reference Guide (a book I ordered and received but have not yet cracked open.) I will probably enhance that with the list of reagents found on the back of a printed periodic table. But I think that will still leave fewer than 200 compounds. Of course users will be able to add more.

So for the moment at least, I’m not overly concerned by size. My current content adds about half a megabyte to the 2.6MB empty edition, and that includes two XKCD comic strips I threw in for fun.

@TW_Tones

Perhaps index data tiddlers and compounds constituent elements converted to shorter names eg the Nth element/shortname, eg H2O 1x2+8 or Hx2+O

Yes, I was planning on using the simple form such as “H2O” in a field, with a macro to turn that into “H₂O” for display. There are about a dozen different naming standards as I understand it. I will probably only support the simplest one.

@TW_Tones

• I think the trick is to use the content of the Periodic table to simplify and reduce the content size of the Compound plugin and visa versa, however if possible, maintain a degree of independence, that is relate to each other by a naming standard (tiddler titles), then perhaps later one could bring in or chop and change other plugins or data sources.
• For example if one plugin is available and not the other, eg compound but no periodic table, then you have a minimalist periodic table, perhaps data tiddler that you can put in its place.

I’m thinking a bit differently here, in a more layered approach. Everything depends on the Elements. but the baseline periodic table and the compounds are independent of one another. The Reactor is dependent upon both of these, and certain games are dependent upon the periodic table, and so forth.

@TW_Tones

I recall the term valence as it relates to columns and groups of elements and these of course can influence the way elements join into compounds.

Yes, my last chemistry class was 40 years ago, but I recall how valences are defined and used. I do know that Roman Numerals seem to have been abandoned by chemists here, though, in favor of the arabic numbers of the groups.

@TW_Tones

Perhaps your list in the “Gulf of periodicy” should be in valence order not alphabetic?

I’m not sure what you mean here. These types don’t exactly correlate with either the groups or the periods. There are 11 of these types (should that be “series” instead of “types”?), 7 periods, and 18 groups. And I wouldn’t be surprised if within the decade we push into period 8!

@TW_Tones

Basically make choices that multiply the future possibilities, not close them down.

I try to make that a mantra in my life as a developer/software architect! But it has to be balanced against avoiding premature abstraction. So for the moment, everything is focused on the single style of periodic table, and there is no way to create the 50-column wide version. But if we find we need it, I should be able to make the change in one place – the periodic-table macro, keeping the current behavior as default. So I’m thinking to the future, but leaving the work of that abstraction for later.

@TW_Tones

You should add a group that astronomers use to separate metals and non-metals. Its almost a joke

Funny that you should mention that. Yesterday I ran across two recent XKCD comic related to elements and to the periodic table. So I included them in the wiki. I don’t think I’ll keep them long-term, but the first one is a gem. And if I do keep them, I will definitely include the astronomers’ view of the table as well.