ArticlesIn a long line of project ideas that I never plan to execute:
Imagine a web-site. It is a wiki, but you don’t have access to edit it, only to view it.
It shows the Periodic Table of the Elements.
So far, it is pretty uninteresting. Well, I mean interesting, but not novel.
But click on the “View History” button and it becomes an interactive science history project! There are all the changes and improvements listed. Perhaps some entries might read:
| Date | User | Change Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1789 | Lavoisier | Initial version with 33 elements. |
| … | ||
| 1864 | Julius Lothar Meyer | Arrange by valency |
| … | ||
| 1869 | Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev | Rearranged into larger table |
| 1869 | Anon | Added citation needed for missing elements. |
| … | ||
| 1875 | Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran | Replaced uncited “eka-aluminium” with Gallium |
| … | ||
| 2002 | JINR | Added “ununoctium” |
Obviously, it should be possible to compare the changes at each step to see what was added.
And there should be an edit war, starting the 1960s over elements 104-109.
I think this would be an interesting read for scientists, science students and science aficionados… but not enough for me to follow up and do it.
Comment by configurator on March 29, 2011
Brilliant!