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Poster Samples (118)These are the samples used in my Photographic Periodic Table Poster to represent each element. They are shown in the form of a tile exactly as they appear in the poster. You can order a beautifully printed copy of this poster here.
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Favorite Samples (15)These are the elements that make up my favorite samples. Some of them I like because they are big and chunky, some because they are unusual, some have particularly good entries in the website, etc. They are in order with favorite first.
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Samples In the RGB Set (92)This collection shows all the samples available in the very nice element collection available for sale from The Red Green and Blue company in England. This set was kindly donated by Max Whitby, the director of the company. To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description, or the company's website which includes many photographs and pricing details.
I have two photographs of each sample from the set: One taken by me and one supplied by the company. You can see photographs of all the samples displayed in a periodic table format: my pictures, or their pictures. Or you can see both sets in numerical order with bigger pictures in this collection: The pictures on the left are mine, generally with the samples taken out of the bottles, while the pictures on the right are from the company and show the samples in the bottles exactly as they come in the set. (There is some variation in the form of some of the samples, because the sets are not all identical. And in a few cases I haven't taken my own picture yet, so the two are identical.)
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Samples In the Everest Set (108)This collection shows all the samples available in the element collection available for sale on eBay. This set was kindly provided at a greatly reduced price by Rob Accurso, who bought the remaining stock when the distributor dumped it.
Note that the number of elements listed for this collection, 108, is the number of nicely labeled ampules included in the box. Several of these represent elements that are radioactive and are not included in the set: The total number of elements actually present physically in the set is 82.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout, or in numerical order with bigger pictures in this collection.
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Samples In the Jensan Set (39)This collection shows some of the samples available in the Grand Tour of the Periodic Table mineral collection sold by Jensan Scientifics.
NOTE! This is currently only an incomplete set of photographs: There are a total of 60 samples in the set. I'll have them all photographed within a month or two.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout, or in numerical order with bigger pictures in this collection.
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Samples with Stories (13)These are elements that have longer stories associated with one or more samples. Click on the story book icons to read the stories, most of which have additional pictures and videos in them.
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Samples with Rotatable Images (911)These are samples that have QuickTimeVR 3D and JavaScript stereoscopic rotatable images associated with one or more samples. You can download the latest version of QuickTime for Macintosh or Windows from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download. To make these files I first used a "VR Micro Studio", which consisted of an up-side-down panorama head, a three-axis adjustable tripod mount, and a 1000W halogen light. The camera was covered with tinfoil to keep it from burning up under the hot light. After making about 130 3D images (almost 10,000 individual photographs) I got a fiber optic illumination system and my studio looked like this. It was much more flexible, and doesn't get hot at all. Light really is the key to photographing small things: You need a lot of it close in. Then after another 50 or so I finally got an automatic turntable. Commercial stepper-motor systems are available, but they are very expensive and I've found they all vibrate, which disturbs delicate arrangements. I instead use a cheap surplus turntable with a 5 revolution per hour timing motor, combined with a time lapse control set to take a picture every 10 seconds. That works out to 72 images in one 12-minute revolution. If you do the math, the motion blur is less than one pixel even at a 1/15 second exposure, so a stepper motor that starts and stops is really not necessary. That was good, but in preparing for a Discovery Channel film project, I needed to upgrade to 360 steps instead of 72, and I wanted to be able to handle all sizes from nearly microscopic to a couple hundred pounds. The solution was a pair of custom-machined (by me, of course) turntables, cast iron mounts and a slate base for everything (because of vibrations, which are a big problem for samples less than about 5mm across). In late 2004 the studio looks like this.
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Samples with High Resolution Spin Movies (686)These are samples that have high-resolution (one degree step) spin movies, in which the sample is shown rotating on a turntable, completing one revolution every 12 seconds (360 frames at 30 frames per second). These movies were made with one of several custom-built high-precision turntables: Because some of them are very small, tight tollerances are required to avoid wobble and vibration. Here is a picture of the rotation studio as it appeared in late 2004. The images were taken one every 5 seconds using a Canon 20D digital SLR.
To make downloading practical the movies are shown at 400x600 resolution, but the original 8 megapixel images (about 750MB per sample) are available on special request.
To get to the movie, click the turntable icon on the right of each sample line: This will take you to a 72-step QuickTime VR version. Underneath that will be a link taking you to the 360-step movie loop.
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Samples with Sounds (56)These are elements that have sounds associated with one or more samples. For example, tin has the tin cry, etc.
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Samples with Videos (12)These are elements that have videos associated with one or more samples. There are also quite a few additional videos in the stories associated with the elements that have stories. All the videos on this site are in QuickTime format, and most of them require QuickTime V5 or better. You can download the latest version of QuickTime for Macintosh or Windows from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download.
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Minerals, Alloys, and Compounds (279)This collection contains samples that are not pure elements, but rather mixtures of several. Most are naturally occurring minerals in more or less the form they come out of the ground. (With a few exceptions, minerals are complex chemical compounds or mixtures of compounds). Other samples here are pure chemical compounds or alloys (mixtures of metals). Each sample is listed under all of the elements it contains.
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Elements with External Samples (30)These are elements that have "External" samples associated with them. External samples are ones not actually located in the table and which I don't own. Generally speaking that means museum specimens, interesting rocks, or other objects I found somewhere that had to stay where they were for whatever reason.
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Solid at Room Temperature (84)These elements are solids at room temperature and pressure.
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Liquid at Room Temperature (2)These elements are liquids at room temperature and pressure.
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Gas at Room Temperature (13)These elements are gasses at room temperature and pressure.
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Stable Elements (79)These elements are entirely stable (non-radioactive).
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Stable Elements with Radioactive Isotopes (4)These elements are generally considered stable (and have at least one stable isotope), but also have at least one naturally occurring (on earth) radioactive isotope. Generally speaking these radioactive isotopes are either very long-lived or occur as only a very small percentage of the element.
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Radioactive Elements (38)These elements are radioactive. They either have no stable naturally occurring isotope, or else are entirely artificial (all artificial elements have no stable isotopes).
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Fun/Dangerous Experiments (17)These are elements I've done experiments with at one time or another: Click the sample pictures to read about them. Some of these experiments are quite dangerous, and will result in burns, chronic or acute poisoning, blindness or death. Unless, of course, you are careful and understand what you are doing, what the dangers are, and how to protect yourself. Danger is part of life: Respect it and it will let you live.
I would like to add a special note for any teenagers who are reading this section. One of the great things about teenagers is that you are, for the most part, biologically incapable of confronting your own mortality. And I mean that in the best possible way. I know you're perfectly well aware, in an intellectual sort of way, that you're human and that no one lives forever. But you don't really believe that, do you? You don't, and that's why you can go out and take chances, break barriers, change the world, in ways that more sensible people would be way too sensible for. That is your power: Use it. And some day in your late 20s or early 30s, you will stop in your tracks and for the first time in your life really understand death: Yours. It's scary, but it's how you grow.
That is the day you'll start wearing safety glasses when you do these experiments. In the mean time, all I can say is, please wear glasses anyway, even though you know in your heart that nothing could ever happen to you. Ideally they should be wrap-around safety glasses, but let's be realistic here: Any glasses are better than none. If you don't wear corrective lenses, find some good open-frame safety glasses at the hardware store. They are comfortable, don't steam up, and are much easier to clean than the goggle-type. If you'll actually wear those, that's way better than sealed goggle types you aren't wearing.
Why are glasses so important? Because having your cheeks ripped off by shrapnel, your hair burned to the roots, and your nose split open and folded up over your forehead is nothing, nothing compared to being blind for the rest of your life. Not even close.
On that note, here are some elements you can do great experiments with.
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Elements at Walmart (31)It's amazing how many elements you can buy in reasonably pure form at Walmart: My list currently contains 31 elements. (When I say "Walmart" I really mean any combination of grocery store, hardware store, and pharmacy. Walmart just happens to be the most common and most diverse store most people in the US would be familiar with.) To get on this list, an element has to be available in such a store in reasonably pure form, not in an alloy or compound. Platings (e.g. chrome plating) do count, and in some cases it may be necessary to dig the element out from inside a consumer product. Note that if you look at any individual element, I may not have actually gotten the sample from Walmart, and the sample might not even be of the kind of thing you can actually get there. I hope to have such samples filled in eventually.
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Elements in the Human Body (25)Here are all the elements required if you want to build a human body, in order of the quantity required. An actual body contains small amounts of most other elements it's picked up from the environment, but these are the only ones you actually need.
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Elements that spell OLiVEr SAcKS (8)For the front of my home page I had the idea that I might spell out my name using element tiles from the Periodic Table Table. Unfortunately, it can't be done: My name is not a chemical compound. But that got me thinking about other people whose names might be possible, and lo and behold, Dr. Sacks himself can be spelled with elements!
Naturally I then wrote a small webMathematica program to break any name into elements, if it can be done. Some people are compounds, some people aren't, that's all there is to it, and to find out if you are, click here.
Here's what Dr. Sacks looks like spelled out in elements:
       
And here are the elements he's made of.
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Elements Popular in Collections (94)Here is a collection of the elements in order of how many other collections (on this website) they appear in. A measure of versatility? Maybe. The list is cut off at those that occur in only two other collections, not counting commercial element sets.
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Elements I Need Samples Of (3)These are all the elements I don't have any sample of, or where my sample is less than 80% pure (which often means it's a compound). I've excluded elements past 98 and a few earlier ones, because they are not realistically storable (e.g. have a halflife of a few minutes and exist only occasionally in a few research labs in the world, that kind of thing). This is a list I hope to have empty some day. A shopping list you might say.
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Elements I Have Extra Of (17)These are elements I have more than I need of, and would potentially be willing to trade for other interesting elements. PLEASE don't ask me for any of these unless you've got something to trade that I don't have and that is difficult to get. I'm not in the business of distributing elements, and maintain this list only because sometimes people with unusual elements have the same attitude I do: They'll only give them up if you've got something equally interesting to trade. If you have an element you think I might like, and you'd like something on this list, contact me at theodore@wolfram.com and maybe we can make a deal. I have not included in this list things that are easily available from stores or internet suppliers: If there's anything at all on my website you like, click the Source link and you may find it's easier to get than you think. Or, you may find there is absolutely no way on earth to ever get another one: It just depends.
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