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Google Launches Interactive 3D Periodic Table To Teach Chemistry (somagnews.com) 74

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved dept.
Google has launched an interactive and 3D periodic table of chemical elements to help students learn chemistry. Somag News reports: The new functionality is being integrated into the Google Nest Hub device to encourage chemistry students, but it can now be accessed from any desktop or mobile phone via this link. As there are a multitude of periodic table models available on the internet, Google took care to make yours different, offering some extra features. In Google's interactive periodic table, in addition to searching everything that is known about any chemical element, such as atomic mass and melting point, it will be possible to observe the number of electrons in the last layer rotating around the atomic nucleus through a 3D rendering. Also on display are some trivia like "Lithium is a metal, but it's so soft it can be cut with a knife."

The periodic table is coming in a bundle of Google Assistant updates designed to make family tasks easier, including creating reminders for the Family Bell. This feature, currently only available on smart screens and speakers, will reach the screens of all Android devices in a few weeks.
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Google Launches Interactive 3D Periodic Table To Teach Chemistry More

Google Launches Interactive 3D Periodic Table To Teach Chemistry

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  • A model over a hundred years old (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NicknameUnavailable ( 4134147 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @06:08AM (#61687105)
    Good job Google, propagating the Bohr model /s

    • Re:A model over a hundred years old (Score:5, Funny)

      by cruff ( 171569 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @07:40AM (#61687275)
      Agreed, that is a real disservice to a student wanting to learn about elements and the shapes of the electron orbitals.

    • Re:A model over a hundred years old (Score:4, Insightful)

      by r2kordmaa ( 1163933 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @07:56AM (#61687309)
      It's an enduring model for a good reason, it's simple to understand and useful. Trying to think about actual electron orbitals as they really are is not helpful in trying to understand chemical interactions. A human brain is not a supercomputer, you can't model reality the way it truly is, you need simplifications and abstractions to make any sense of reality.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Maybe, but then they start animating the model, creating the wrong impression that this is how electrons move around the atom. Bohr is good as a visual aid, not as a kinematic model.

        Also... "withgoogle.com"... are we sure this is actually from Google?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jamu ( 852752 )
        I was expecting more than a 2D representation in an interactive 3D periodic table.

      • Re:A model over a hundred years old (Score:4, Informative)

        by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @08:48AM (#61687431)
        It is simple to understand - and violently wrong. It is not like this was elucidated yesterday either - it has been known for a century.

        • Re:A model over a hundred years old (Score:5, Insightful)

          by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @11:35AM (#61688243) Journal
          So explain simply in two or three short sentences what is wrong with it. And then explain how that can be shown easily on an interactive diagram of the periodic table in a way that middle and high school students will be helped to understand. In this latter, leave behind the information that your near adult and adult brain was able to learn in university after you had time to digest a few years added physics, chemistry, and mathematics. If you actually come up with something, I still doubt it will be understandable to kids learning about chemistry for the first time. Real atoms are hard to understand, really. The people you learn about them with in university are not of average intelligence. And the Bohr model got many real scientists 50 to 100 years ago well along the way to major discoveries [nobelprize.org] that we will use forever (even if some scientists in this period worked to find a model that we understand today, not all of them needed that, nor still do). If it was so wrong, those discoveries would never have been made. And I'm not talking in physics and theoretical levels of chemistry, but in applied science Let kids start simple instead of throwing them in the deep end and nearly drowning them. All you'll do that way is encourage them not to try swimming again. And 'violently' is violent hyperbole.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cyberax ( 705495 )

            So explain simply in two or three short sentences what is wrong with it.

            The 3D model of an atom is useless. You just look at a dot with a lot of points around it. It does not provide any explanatory power whatsoever.

            A better model would be to visualize the atom maybe as some kind of a LEGO block with some kind of sockets visualizing the orbitals. It will show how simple chemical compounds work, by visualizing bonds as two atoms trying to fill each other's unfilled sockets.

            It's an incomplete explanation of course, but it's at least a start.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dfm3 ( 830843 )

              A better model would be to visualize the atom maybe as some kind of a LEGO block with some kind of sockets visualizing the orbitals. It will show how simple chemical compounds work, by visualizing bonds as two atoms trying to fill each other's unfilled sockets.

              That sounds like you are describing Lewis dot diagrams [lumenlearning.com]

          • So explain simply in two or three short sentences what is wrong with it. And then explain how that can be shown easily on an interactive diagram of the periodic table in a way that middle and high school students will be helped to understand.

            I was shown elemental electron cloud diagrams in high school chemistry... in 1991. And it was not even remotely difficult to understand. In fact, I'd say it was more memorable than the Bohr model. I remember the hinky shapes of the inner electron clouds to this day.

            Sure "practical" chemistry 100 years ago did not require an understanding of atoms any better than the Bohr model, but we as a species have picked all the low-hanging fruit. No the bottom 90% of humanity are not going to understand or contrib

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by grimr ( 88927 )

        Trying to think about actual electron orbitals as they really are is not helpful in trying to understand chemical interactions

        Electron subshells and orbitals are very useful in understanding chemical interactions. I'm not saying they should go into the deep math quantum mechanics stuff but they could have at least showed the basic shapes of the orbitals.

        When they said 3D that's what I thought they were going to do. Because showing a flat planetary style orbits in 3D is about as useful as tits on a bull. Yes, I know it occasionally alters the angles of the planes of the orbits but that's Hollywood and not science.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Actually, there is a whole field of computational chemistry that models electron orbitals to better understand chemical interactions.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dfm3 ( 830843 )
        High school chemistry teacher here.

        The Bohr model is just that, a model, and one of several that are part of the intro curriculum (including models by Dalton, Rutherford, and the quantum mechanical model). My students know that these are all models and I expect them to know the benefits, and drawbacks, of each. The Bohr model is just fine for introducing the basics of chemical bonding and valence electrons, so we use it often. Quantum mechanics may be closer to reality, but I'm working with students who a

      • It's an enduring model for a good reason, it's simple to understand and useful. Trying to think about actual electron orbitals as they really are is not helpful in trying to understand chemical interactions.

        Not when you grow up being taught a different model.

        A human brain is not a supercomputer

        It literally is, even more powerful than modern ones for that matter, and responsible for the creation of everything modern ones can do even when fully optimized.

        you can't model reality the way it truly is, you need simplifications and abstractions to make any sense of reality.

        Sure you can. You just don't find it intuitive because you learned a dated model before the best known model.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by bras ( 8535225 )
        The only reason by which the model of orbits has been enduring is that is a pretty sketch, it is aesthetic and has a good sight. It's important to you the ease to understand based on a model whith no scientific fundamentals? Obviously we are not a supercomputer, but there are options. The enduring heritage of Bohr's model is the concept of energy levels. So, one adequate way to simplify through abstractions are the diagrams of energy levels of atoms. They are correct to explain electronic structure and elec
    • When will they get around to modeling A proper Phligiston Simulator the demo I saw at Siggraph was incredibly weak. CestlaV

    • Yeah, why did this even need an announcement? Any newb developer could have created that in less than a day. It's not like the data is hard to find. Woopty doo, Google.

  • Very bad (Score:4, Funny)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday August 13, 2021 @06:19AM (#61687115)

    How are we supposed to turn this into a shower curtain?

  • Orbital uncertainty (Score:5, Informative)

    by billybob2001 ( 234675 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @06:22AM (#61687123)

    it will be possible to observe the number of electrons in the last layer rotating around the atomic nucleus

    In exactly the way they don't - more ballistically than probabalistically.

    Btw, it shows all shells ("layers"), not just the "last layer".

  • Such multimedia. Much information superhighway. Wow.

    Clearly this needs iMusk-backed NFT cryptoAI to be all the hype with the retards of today. ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      I wouldn't even call this 3D. Sure there is a 3Dish model of the atom but with just that it is quite a stretch to call this a 3D periodic table.

  • Seems a weak attempt at marketing from Google. If you want to see it done better look up the Elements app. This web page looks like something knocked up in an afternoon. Inspiring it ain't.
    • Agreed. The 3D viewer is completely useless. For anything beyond the first couple of elements, the view is so small, and the "orbitals" rotate so fast, that no useful detail can be examined. And the information on each is element is so sparse as to be useless; basically a "fun fact" (e.g. Agatha Christie used thallium as the agent of murder in her detective fiction novel "The Pale Horse"), atomic mass, and density. My old 2-D tables from the 70s contained far more useful detail.

      • You can zoom the view with a mouse wheel, which solves one of the problems.

        • I zoomed into Dubnium (atomic weight 105) and the electron orbits changed to more of a sphere.

          Also, Dubnium!!

          I wonder if there will be a Skrillexium one day?

    • Yup. Probably some guy was bored at work and created this, then Google decides to market it so that they get extra education brownie points while also advertising their products.

  • Subliminal advertising (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday August 13, 2021 @07:07AM (#61687221)

    Google will stop at nothing to plug Chromium in some way or other, even if it means talking about the 108 other elements.

  • How will this teach chemistry students when they don't even list the actual element name? What does Sn mean for Tin? Au for Gold? Hg for Mercury... etc.
    • The alchemical symbols are also missing... oh travesty, how will the students ever learn anything of use that way.

    • Sad news for you, the "actual element name" isn't that latin name. Leave Latin to the altar boy gropers.

      The IUPAC names are under the column "Name":

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Google launched Google Eath.
    It's an incredible thing to learn about earth and geography. ... and flat-earthers flourished.

    Can't wait to next next gen morons explaining water earth wind and fire are the only true elements and GAFA are liers. :-)

     

  • why linking to an article which does not even link to the actual place It s here: https://artsexperiments.withgo... [withgoogle.com] Nic to have cool interactive Boor representiatons of the electron configurations.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      The "via this link" link in the summary does take you directly to the periodic table in question.

  • Does it really help the average person understand the elements or overload them with too much information. Seem like a nice "in addition to" rather than a "better replacement".

  • "can now be accessed from any desktop or mobile phone via this link."
    But no link, which leads me to think that's a shittier-than-usual aggregator.
    At least the Verge's article HAS A LINK.

    Or, you could link straight to the thing, right?
    https://artsexperiments.withgo... [withgoogle.com]

    I mean, assuming we had editors that gave a shit beyond pimping their own sites.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      The submitter or the editor did add the link at that point of the quote in the summary though.

  • I mean, that's how I learned electron stuff back in the early 80s but I thought we'd pretty much all agreed that these 'orbitals' commonly visualized as neat little orreries of electron planets are more authentically simulated as clouds of probability, no?

    Given the ability of something touting it's "3d-ness" to zoom, rotate, show layers abundantly better than old paper books could, I'd have assumed this "tool" would default to a more 21st century portrayal...?

    More like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.. [wikipedia.org]

  • "Lithium is a metal, but it's so soft it can be cut with a knife."

    Not as far as astronomers are concerned. Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium are not metals, but anything bigger is.

    I wonder if they have the correct spelling for element # 13. (Hint: like Lithium and Helium it ends in -ium)

  • 99 bucks?

    Bloody hell!

  • I looks like they either took some inspiration or code from an existing table: https://graphoverflow.com/grap... [graphoverflow.com]

  • i didn't find it very impressive. i've always been a big fan of ptable.com. it shows a better "3D" representation of the outer shell in my opinion. click on the electrons tab for the shells. also, there's WAY more info there
  • Yawn. Basically the same old periodic table with very little detailed information. It has a button for more information; e.g. Mercury links to ads for mercury.com and Mercury Marine and the planet Mercury.

    The 3D part is *extremely* ill advised. It's a 3D depiction of an atom with the ridiculous Bohr model that was obviously wrong even to a layman a century ago.

    Electrons do not orbit the nucleus like a planet, they are three dimensional waves. If they were, they would emit electromagnetic waves, lose ene

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