The Periodic Table Quotes

“Of all the major developments in the history of science, there may be no better example than that of the periodic system to argue against Thomas Kuhn’s thesis that scientific progress occurs through a series of sharp revolutionary stages.20 Indeed, Kuhn’s insistence on the centrality of revolutions in the development of science and his efforts to single out revolutionary contributors has probably unwittingly contributed to the retention of a Whiggish history of science, whereby only the heroes count while blind alleys and failed attempts are written out of the story.21”
― Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance

“The notion that the atom consists of a nucleus with electrons in orbit around it, which is taken for granted in modern science, originated when British physicist J.J. Thomson tried to explain the order of the elements displayed in the periodic table. Similarly, when Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, applied new ideas about the quantum of energy to the atom, he was specifically trying to obtain a deeper understanding of the periodic system of the elements.24 A”
― Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance

“In many cases, the theory in question is too difficult to apply, and so scientists tend to base their work on models and approximations. The full acceptance of this fact has produced a subdiscipline that studies the nature of scientific models.16 And yet, as I argue in this book, the periodic table of chemistry is neither a theory nor a model but more akin to an “organizing principle,” for want of a better term. This book is partly an attempt to encourage philosophers of science to study the periodic table as an example of yet another scientific entity that does a lot of useful scientific work without being a theory.17”
― Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance