In this finale to season 4 we have an exceptional guest in Eric Scerri, a distinguished expert on the history and philosophy of chemistry. The thought-provoking conversation brings into question what really defines an element and if we truly understand the periodic table of elements and what it represents. This is a guest and an episode you’ll remember!
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Chemistry is often perceived as inaccessible and challenging, but there is one fundamental chemical construct that everybody knows – the periodic table of the elements. The periodic table is a chemical icon, that has transcended the boundaries of the chemical sciences to somehow become familiar, almost a staple in several aspects of everyday life. It is the foundation of every chemist’s knowledge, but not many understand its deeper meaning, let alone its history and philosophical significance.
This is an exciting and unusual episode with one of the biggest names in chemistry, Eric Scerri, historian and scientist and the biggest living expert of the periodic table of the elements.
The history and philosophy of chemistry are not common topics for Bringing Chemistry to Life, but this is an intriguing discussion that provides a deeper meaning and context to scientific research and chemistry in particular. In what may be our most thought-provoking episode yet we explore the relationship between chemistry and physics and revisit concepts that have been lost by modern scientists. We discuss what an element really is and the fundamental discoveries and progress that have been made over the years to influence chemical understanding and the periodic table. All this can explain how modern science really works and perhaps how we can teach it better.
Our greatest season finale yet!
Dr. Eric Scerri00:06
There's always more to find. There are done deals in science. You know, there's no theory of everything. And if they, even if some people claim there is a theory of everything, it's probably nonsense.
Paolo 00:22
Throughout this season of Bringing Chemistry to Life, we have taken deep dives into different corners of the chemistry world with several top experts in their fields. In today's season finale, we're going to zoom out a bit with Dr. Eric Scerri. Eric's work about the history and philosophy of the periodic table is unparalleled. And he remains one of the most influential chemists working today. I'm your host, Paolo Braiuca from Thermo Fisher Scientific. I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Dr. Eric Scerri00:51
Initially, my undergraduate degree was in regular chemistry. And then I began a PhD in Cambridge, actually, in theoretical chemistry. But it didn't quite suit me, it was far too mathematical. Then I began an experimental project at the University of Southampton, it was another PhD. That didn't work out, I just discovered I wasn't really a good experimentalist and, you know, typically broke machines and things like that. And finally, I discovered the history and philosophy of science, and I had an outstanding, an excellent adviser who had just retired same as able to devote more time to me. We would meet once a week, we would have lunch, we would discuss, we would go to his office, we would discuss some more, then we would go for tea and cakes in the British fashion, and we would discuss some more. So it was, it took me six years, but it gave me a very good foundation, I think, in history and philosophy of science. After my PhD, I did a postdoc at the London School of Economics for a couple of years. And then I applied for positions in the States, and I managed to get a postdoctoral fellowship at Cal Tech. And then 23 years ago, actually, came to University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA, and I'm still there. Most philosophy departments, at least in the United States, will have one or two philosophers of science. These people can vary quite a lot. Some of them are heavy on the philosophy and not so much on the science. But some of them are the other way around.
Paolo 02:35
Where do you see yourself? Are you, are you right in the middle? Or do you feel more of a scientist or more of a philosopher?
Dr. Eric Scerri02:41
I am right in the middle.
Paolo 02:42
We'll probably dig a bit further in the, you know, I'm really interested in the relationship within, between the philosophy of science and science, you know, and what contribution we could get. But I feel like before getting there, it might be beneficial to explore a bit of your work. You're really famous for being probably the biggest expert of the periodic table. Rather than me trying to explain this, I have you here. I think I should ask you to kind of guide me through, you know, when you think about the periodic table, you know, where would you start to explain it to somebody?
Dr. Eric Scerri03:18
Well, the way I like to explain it is to say that if you arrange the elements in order, originally it was done in order of increasing atomic weight, now it's done in order of increasing atomic number. So if you have this line of elements, as you move along the line every now and then you get an approximate repetition of a previous elements. So for example, and lithium, and then you walk along the line, and then you come to sodium, and then you walk a little further and you come to potassium. This is the essence of periodicity, an approximate repetition. Now, it's an interesting periodicity. But first of all, because it's approximate, not exact. Secondly, it's because the distance you have to walk before you come to an element, like the one before, varies. The first period is just two elements, the next two periods are eight, then this 18, and then it's 32. So it's a complicated kind of periodicity, unlike the days of the week, or the notes on a musical scale, and things of that kind, which are also periodic.
Paolo 04:23
But it's also that, you know, the similarities between elements belonging to the same group is sometimes a bit questionable, right? It's kind of obvious if you're a trained chemist, and you know, you know, things about orbitals and sort of the physical way of describing, right? Or if you're a chemist, you may, you know the balance because how many bonds and elements usually tends to do and all these sorts of things, right? But you know, if you look at how elements that should be similar look like, very often they look very, very different. And modern chemists probably don't hesitate to kind of understand the similarities but if I take modern analytical techniques, what we know about the physics behind it now and, you know, try and imagine how this might look like to an early chemist right? You know, a couple of centuries ago, it must have been an insurmountable problem and something that took a lot of iterations and years and years of work for many people to get to where we are today. It might be interesting to kind of reconstruct the story a little bit, and I know that condensing in a few minutes is hard. But if there's anybody who can do is if that's you, I think.
Dr. Eric Scerri05:37
Let me actually comment on something interesting that you said, which is that sometimes it's hard to see the similarity between elements in within one group. Take, for instance, group 17, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, astatine. If you were to look at samples of them, they would be quite different, but if for one thing, some of them are gases, one of them is a liquid, a couple of them are solids. This brings up a point that the periodic table is not actually based on the nature of elements as simple substances. It's based on the more abstract concept of element, which is in a sense, beyond its properties. It underlies the properties, and this is where the philosophy comes in. And this is something that quite frequently, chemists don't appreciate. So the philosopher is thinking about the element in a deeper sense.
Paolo 06:31
So there's still a debate about what an element is pretty much.
Dr. Eric Scerri06:34
Yes, oh, yes. Going all the way back to the ancient Greeks who of course discussed the elements. For them, it was an abstract entity. Lavoisier is the one who made an element something that could be isolated where you couldn't get any more fundamental. And the more abstract sense, was for a while neglected. Mendeleev is one of the people who brought it back. But then it has faded again. It's by no means settled and it's by no means a clear-cut situation.
Paolo 07:07
How do we get from the sort of substances concept of Lavoisier to, you know, the modern, you know, atoms, the concept of the atoms and the concept of the elements and, you know, which is still debated. And, you know, how many iterations now, you know, what are the key features, or the key moments of the history, you know, from the beginnings?
Dr. Eric Scerri07:31
Sure that that is a big question you're asking there. When the periodic table was first proposed by as many as six individuals. Incidentally, Mendeleev was the last of the six discoverers, although he made more of the periodic table than the others did. But he is the last of them. Of course, atomic structure was not known at the time, and it was all done on chemical properties. But then, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were a number of discoveries in physics, which influenced the way that chemists thought about the periodic table and about chemistry in general. I'm thinking of the discovery of X-rays, discovery of the electron, the discovery of radioactivity, all of which would have a profound influence on the way chemistry was conceived. So, then you begin to have the beginnings of an explanation for the periodic table.People like Niels Bohr, who first proposed that the reason why lithium, sodium, or potassium, are in the same group behaves similarly is because of they have an analogous electronic configuration. And then with that develops even further one speaks of orbitals instead of Bohr's orbits. And one can get a more precise arrangement of electrons. And then, of course, calculations become possible in theoretical chemistry. And modern chemistry, a lot of modern chemistry, even organic chemistry, as you know, is based on quantum mechanics. It's the molecular orbital approach, which has been tremendously successful.
Paolo 09:05
One theme here is the relationship between chemistry and physics. If you think about how I was taught, the periodic table, how I was taught chemistry at university, it was very much from the physical angle. There's very little of, you know, how we got there is very little of the observable chemical properties of the element, you jump into orbitals, and you know, the S, P, D, F, and there's a hole in the middle, right? You know, what is the role chemistry here and what is its relationship with physics? And is chemistry even relevant anymore?
Dr. Eric Scerri09:41
This has been one of the key questions in the philosophy of chemistry, which, incidentally, began to take shape in the mid-1990s. Until then, there was a well-developed philosophy of physics, and then there was a philosophy of biology that developed, and chemistry was somehow left out. And one of the reasons why it was left out was the popular perception that chemistry is nothing but physics. So the assumption was that yes, of course, all chemistry reduces to physics. One of the themes in the philosophy of chemistry has been to examine that in more detail. To what extent does chemistry really reduce to quantum mechanics?
Paolo 10:24
Well, fundamentally, I guess it's true, right? You know, if you had the time and maybe the computational power, you know, you could potentially describe everything with quantum mechanics. I don't think it's practical I don't think you can really approach a chemical problem with physical principles.
Dr. Eric Scerri10:36
A philosopher would frame it in the following way. There are really two issues here. There is the epistemological reduction of chemistry question. Meaning, do the theories of chemistry reduce to the theories of physics? And that the simple answer is no, not quite. There are gaps. But then there's the more ontological question. Meaning, what you just expressed is the feeling of well, surely, chemistry is nothing but physics. Molecules, or chemical substance are made of molecules and atoms, and that is the domain of physics. So of course, in principle, physics must explain chemistry. Some people even doubt that, by the way. I mean you a chemist have quickly said, "Oh, yes, of course, it's reducible to physics." But in philosophy, some people doubt this ontological reduction. Now, the opposite view is that there's some sort of emergence that occurs, where something at the grosser levels is qualitatively different and is not merely made up of the fundamental particles and is not governed by the fundamental particles. I happen to disagree with that view. But there is a lot of talk these days more and more about this concept of emergence. Meaning the grosser levels, if I may put it that way, are not simply being caused by the more fundamental levels, that something emerges at the higher levels.
Paolo 12:12
The way I'm tempted to think about it is, you know, how useful, right, it really is. While I understand that you can explain it with physics, we can reduce it, we can reduce it to physic, to physics, it is just not useful, right? I mean, it would be impractical and not particularly pragmatic. You know, there's a way of looking at chemical problems from a chemistry perspective.
Dr. Eric Scerri12:39
That's true, of course, but at the same time the mere fact that organic chemists these days, are using molecular orbital theory to make predictions is a case of the usefulness of that reductive approach, if you like. So, yes and no. The chemist is still using methods that are alien to the physicist, but they are also leaning heavily on ab initio calculations, for example.
Paolo 13:08
I'd like to go back to another thing you mentioned when you were sort of trying to summarize the history of the periodic table in three sentences. You know, you mentioned in the journey, I know there's a number of important figures, you know, we've mentioned Lavoisier, but then there's a couple of great chemists, there’s Avogadro, there’s Cannizzaro and, you know, this more, there's many more, right? And that also is probably the basis of one of the things that you speak about is, you know, how we look from the philosophical perspective of the evolution of science, you know, how progress works, you know, is it just, you know, the single name, the big name comes up with the big leap, you know, a genius idea that changes the perspective or is it more of a sort of progressive incremental, organic incremental, you know, step after step growth?
Dr. Eric Scerri14:10
Yeah. As you may know, this has been one of my interests, the question of whether science progresses by revolutions, or whether perhaps it progresses by evolution. Sometimes there are revolutions, I mean, quantum mechanics and relativity theory may be examples of revolutions. But there are fewer revolutions than it's normally believed. According to me.
Paolo 14:36
It is a reassuring thought. Because if there is an experience that all scientists have is that science is more about failures than it is about success. Right? And if you're a good scientist or in general life is like that, you know, if you're good at life, you learn something for failures. And that is a progress by itself, a tiny bit of progress. And you know, very often, an entire career of a scientist could be relatively unsuccessful, but there's value in that work and you know, as a scientific community, you know that you're we've progressed based on what we know doesn't work. But yet, you know, there's typically one or two people getting the Nobel Prizes, you know, and or getting a name on a new theory or a new law or whatever. I'm finding the thought, warming in many ways.
Dr. Eric Scerri15:34
It's a connective enterprise. And not just in the sense of, of big science, which happens more and more these days when it's a collective enterprise, even, even the fact that scientists may be individually and separately working on a particular theme. Yet they're communicating through journals, and through conferences, and so on. But of course, everybody likes a winner. As you said, Nobel Prizes are the thing that most scientists are seeking. I have a book called A Tale of Seven Scientists, where I've looked at some minor figures in the history of chemistry and physics who I believe, and other people believe, made really seminal contributions, but are often forgotten, because they may not have made, their "marketing" to use your term, may not have been quite so effective. In that book, I've tried to go even further, I've suggested the concept of science Gaia, which is this James Lovelock thesis that the Earth is a living and unified organism. So I've suggested that that the scientific enterprise is a bit like a living organism, is really all connected, interconnected. And therefore it makes it rather absurd that we should give prizes just to the individuals who happen to be at the right place at the right time with excellent marketing and luck.
Paolo 17:02
Can you make us some examples of you know, these figures in the history of science who have provided some made significant contributions but yet are completely unknown?
Dr. Eric Scerri17:12
Well, one of them is, it relates to the periodic table. The elements are ordered these days according to atomic number, which coincides with the number of protons in the in the atoms of each element. That concept has replaced the atomic weight. When elements were ordered according to atomic weight, there were a few little problems here and there. They're called pair reversals. Tellurium and iodine is a famous example of this. Now, the person who first came up with atomic number, or if you look at most books, it is the British physicist, Henry Mosley. But actually the person who arrived at that concept before Mosley, in fact Mosley credits him, is a Dutch economist or econometrician. His name was Anton van den Broek. And van den Broek was an amateur scientist, he wasn't working in any university. He published a number of very influential papers, what turned out to be influential. And what Mosley was doing was he was putting this on an experimental foundation but the idea came from van den Broek. He's mentioned in a few history of physics books, but very seldom. He doesn't get enough credit if we're talking about credit. In fact, in almost any discovery, if you look into the history of it, you'll find that somebody, at some point had anticipated that.
Paolo 18:42
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Paolo 19:13
You mentioned there were a number of periodic tables representations, right? And that's something I've always kind of had in my mind is, you know, obviously, the periodic table in its current modern form really works, right? It's useful, and it makes it makes sense and it explained that physics, you know, it's a solid concept, which is it's become an icon and using in art and everything. But there were several, right, hundreds of different ways of representing it. So in a way it's a convention at the same time, or am I wrong?
Dr. Eric Scerri19:49
Wow. That another debate in the in the philosophy of science and philosophy of chemistry. Yes and no. It is not a convention that there are separate elements that exists. These things are the furniture of the universe, regardless of us classifying them. So we come along, and we put them into columns and groups and periods and so on. But that doesn't alter the fact that these elements really exist as separate entities and distinct entities. So we're, again, we're up against that question of epistemology and ontology. From an ontological point of view, it would appear that these things are separate distinct elements. The convention comes from us trying to represent their relationship in a system such as the periodic table, where we can decide to put the groups this way as opposed to that way. So yes, there may be thousands of periodic tables, there are, but there's only one periodic system. There's one periodic relationship, in other words, between the elements, and then there are thousands of ways of trying to represent that, none of which are perfect.
Paolo 21:04
Are there other forms of the table they are useful or have been successful, at least in some times or that would make sense considering?
Dr. Eric Scerri21:16
There is one form, which has been much debated in philosophy of chemistry, which is called the left step periodic table. It involves putting helium in the alkaline earth group instead of in the, keeping it in the noble gases. The basis of it being that helium has two electrons, and therefore is analogous to the elements that have to outer in it, such as beryllium, magnesium, calcium, etc.. This is controversial, of course, because from a purely chemical point of view, it's it seems to be an absurd move. Helium is the most noble of the noble gases, so you wouldn't want to move it out. But from a physics point of view, it's perfectly reasonable since from a physics point of view, it's all about the electron configuration.
Paolo 22:01
The discovery of noble gases has been like a critical moment for the concept of the periodic table, isn't it? Mendeleev kind of refused it in a way?
Dr. Eric Scerri22:11
Yes, it was a threat to the periodic system. When argon was discovered, there seemed to be no place for it in the periodic table. Its weight was such that it didn't seem to fit among the elements that already exist in the periodic table. So Mendeleev thought it was nothing but triatomic nitrogen. Because when you multiply 14 by three, you get more or less the weight that argon seemed to have. Now, eventually, Ramsay and Rayleigh went on to discover several other noble gases. And then the threat to the periodic system became even more extreme. What are you going to do with these four or five elements that hadn't been predicted by anyone? But Ramsay solved the problem, you know, in a rather simple way, he introduced a new column on the right-hand edge of the periodic table that we all know and love these days. And there it was. So suddenly, Mendeleev changed his mind and said that this was a great triumph for the periodic system. Because, you know, its strength lay in the fact that it could accommodate these new elements.
Paolo 23:17
This reminds me another thing that you said at the beginning. You know, you mentioned ideas that came out, then disappear, then came back, right? Reading your book, I remember a couple of examples. I mean, this seems to be important in science in general, and it certainly has a role in the history of the periodic table. Can you elaborate a little bit on data make maybe make an example, too?
Dr. Eric Scerri23:38
Sure. The idea of triads, which is a group of three elements. Again, lithium, sodium, and potassium were a good example. It was discovered that there are these groups of three elements where one of them has the average atomic weight of the other two. In other words, if you add lithium to potassium, and you divide by two, you get approximately the atomic weight of sodium. But even more significantly, the chemical properties of sodium are in between those of lithium and potassium. So here for the first time was a numerical relationship that was connecting different elements together. And I like to say, and other people have said this, this is the first hint of chemical periodicity. The reason why that triadic relationship exists, is simply the fact that you move along from lithium, you get to sodium, and then from sodium, you go to potassium. You have moved an equal number of elements in the periodic table. So it's not surprising that sodium is right in between. This discovery of triads, and there were a number of them were found, came something like 60 years before the discovery of the periodic table. So it contributed to the discovery of the periodic table. Now, as time passed it was realized that it was a very approximate relationship. It broke down in many cases. In some cases it broke down completely. And so the importance of triads decreased more and more. Triads were considered to have been refuted in the sense that, you know, they were wrong. They were regarded as a sort of interesting hint but that, fundamentally, there's nothing there. But curiously enough, when it became a matter of ordering the elements according to atomic number, now, these triads make a sort of comeback. Because when you take atomic number, the relationship is exact. And we understand why it's exact. Furthermore, there are trades all over the periodic system. So for example, coming back to the question of the left step periodic table, and whether that is a more fundamental table, one of the ways people have tried to argue for the importance of the left step table is by using the concept of atomic number triads. And it turns out there is a distinct advantage in the use of the left step table, seen from that point of view. So triads have made a theoretical comeback. They were initially refuted, and now they're back in fashion, if you like. Another example of a comeback, again, in the context of the periodic table, this Prout's hypothesis. Prout looked at the atomic weights of many elements and realized that many of the elements were multiples of the weight of hydrogen, right? whole number multiples, integral multiples. Therefore, he made the obvious suggestion that perhaps all the elements are composites of hydrogen, are made of hydrogen. This is Prout's hypothesis. Now, more accurate measurements showed that this was simply not the case. There are too many exceptions. Once again, once you go to the idea that that atomic number is essential. And that protons are what distinguish, the number of protons are what distinguished the various elements, then it's a comeback, because in the sense of protons, all the elements are composites of protons. So here's another example of a comeback.
Paolo 23:51
What is the role of philosophy of science? You know, in the context of modern science, and you know. What is the real contribution of the difference? And is everybody agreeing on its usefulness?
Dr. Eric Scerri27:26
Far from it. Everybody does not. Philosophy contributes some more conceptual analysis that scientists simply don't have the time to perform. And philosophers are trained in in rigorous ways of thinking, scientists don't. Scientists can sometimes make statements that are, you know, under closer inspection turn out to be illogical or circular to some extent. I'm currently looking into an issue where I'm corresponding with various theoretical chemists and I believe they're making a mistake in their, in their logic. I believe that they are issuing circular arguments. And on the other hand, there is a tendency in the philosophy of science for the philosopher of science to not dig too deeply into the science because they haven't got the training, or they haven't got the time. And to just look at the overall picture and to sometimes miss something that the scientists are really referring to when they're describing their theories. So it's a subtle situation. Yes, philosophy of science can in principle contribute, but only if it's done well, only if it's done with a with a deep knowledge of the science. And so, you know, there are some philosophers of science, and there are some philosophers of science.
Paolo 28:55
Yes, and we go back to the beginning, right, when when I asked you, where do you what do you see yourself? You know, you said, you're right in the middle, and that's probably where you need to be. Right? Because the science become is becoming more and more complex. And if you don't understand it, well, it's quite pointless. You have written a number of books. What are you up to now?
Dr. Eric Scerri29:14
Funnily enough, during COVID, I slowed down, like many people did, and at the moment I haven't settled on one thing. I sort of started two or three book projects. I'm actually very interested in chemical education. I teach chemistry to undergraduates. And what I'm thinking of doing now is writing a book called Making Chemistry Interesting. There are so many books that claim to make chemistry simple. So I'm thinking of a title where the word simple is crossed out and interesting is inserted instead. And digging deeply into the, to the difficult questions that come up in teaching chemistry. I've sort of collected these complicated cases and dug into them over the years and maybe that's what I'm going to be writing about. You know, I like to say to students that they say, "Well, how should I study? How should I study? " I say, "Well, the best way to study is to get interested. And then everything else will follow. Just become interested, become, you know, immersed in the in the work, and then you begin to see the connections. And then it becomes enjoyable, less of an effort instead of trying to remain on the surface and just learn various isolated laws and theories, or what have you. Find the relationship, find the most fundamental idea in any particular subtopic.”
Paolo 30:43
In your, sort of what you just said about education, and all the, you know, the history and the discussion and what we know about the periodic table and the way they teach the periodic table. And going back between the, you know, this sort of tension between chemistry and physics. Do you think there's a fundamental mistake in the way it is taught right now? You know, jumping right into the physics of it, rather than adding the physics on top of the chemical concept, is just an additional explanation. So are we, you know, can we look at it in a different way?
Dr. Eric Scerri31:21
Yes, there's a delicate balance involved here, in presenting chemistry in a modern way through atomic orbitals, and quantum mechanics, and so on, but then, as you said, almost losing sight of the real chemistry. There's a saying that, I've forgotten who first said this, but these days, if you ask a student to write the configuration of an atom like chlorine, then he or she will very happily trot out the entire configuration. They'll get it right. Now you ask them. “What is chlorine like?” they haven't got the slightest idea. The chemistry has been lost. And all they know is that to write this very formal list of numbers. And this is this is a complete travesty, if if we've arrived at that point. And so to some extent, we have arrived at that point. So my suggestion is, yes, we have to show them what the elements are like or give them a feel for what the elements are like, and then bring in the explanation. Instead of putting the cart before the horse. My suggestion is to put the periodic table upfront, by which I mean, not just the periodic table, but the properties of the elements. And then gradually move over to an explanation for it. In terms of quantum mechanics, electron shells, and orbits, and so on.
Paolo 32:51
Makes, it makes sense. I concur. And it's something that probably not enough people are thinking about. Right? And we probably should.
Dr. Eric Scerri33:01
Yeah.
Paolo 33:02
You’ve been speaking about students is the perfect segue to my usual final question. I end my interviews always in the same way. And which is asking what would be your piece of advice to someone who's just starting in their scientific career, right? And here, you can take it, you know, properly scientific, right, or you can take it, you know, in more in your own field, for a philosopher or historian of science. You know, it's, it's completely your call here.
Dr. Eric Scerri33:32
The advice I would give is to get into something that that really interests you. Don't pursue a field because you think you're gonna make a lot of money out of it. It's all because it's going to make you famous or anything like, because you're going to be doing it for quite a long time. And it had better be interesting to keep you going. Of course, that could be a risky path sometimes, you know, my path has certainly been risky, in a professional sense. But I've enjoyed it, and I'm doing what I want to do, instead of doing something that I think I ought to do, because it's the either as the latest fashion in chemistry or the latest bandwagon. So I would say, you know, stick to what interests you, and that, that'll get you farther.
Paolo 34:34
That was Dr. Eric Scerri from the University of California, Los Angeles, a leading chemical historian, and philosopher, one of the most prolific writers in the field of science, and the author of The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance. It's well worth the read. If you enjoyed this conversation, you're sure to enjoy Dr. Scerri's recommendations for books, videos, podcasts, and other content. Look in the Episode Notes for a URL where you can access this information and find out how to request your free Bringing Chemistry to Life t-shirt. Thanks for joining us for this final episode of an incredible season four of Bringing Chemistry to Life. We'll see you all again before too long with new brilliant guests and fascinating conversations in season five. This episode was produced by Sarah Briganti, Matt Ferris, and Matthew Stock.