The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance

Eric R. Scerri's history is now in its second edition, revised to account for element discoveries and naming decisions made since the first, including material on the modern superheavy elements that did not exist as settled fact when the book was first written, which is itself real evidence of a work whose account keeps being checked against ongoing discovery rather than left static. It covers Mendeleev's predicted gaps and the discovery of technetium and promethium as documented historical episodes, not as summarized trivia. This record has not independently traced every claim against the primary history of chemistry literature. It is a strong source for the history of how the periodic table and individual elements came to be understood and named. It is a history of chemistry, not a source on any religious or symbolic association a tradition may separately attach to a particular element.