Editing 2975: Classical Periodic Table

{{comic
| number    = 2975
| date      = August 21, 2024
| title     = Classical Periodic Table
| image     = classical_periodic_table_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x530px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Personally I think mercury is more of a 'wet earth' hybrid element.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by THE AVATAR  - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

An element is a basic atomic building block of the physical world. Ancient civilizations  believed in a small number of broad elements. The most famous are the {{w|classical element|classical (Hellenistic) elements}} of earth, fire, air, water, and sometimes a fifth element such as "void", "ether", or "quintessence." The Chinese {{w|Wuxing (Chinese philosophy)|wuxing}} system was a bit different, dropping air and adding elements for wood and metal. Such elemental theories fell out of favor as alchemists and later scientists began to discover what we now recognize as the atomic model, and today 118 elements are recognized and organized into the {{w|Periodic Table of Elements}}.

Here, Randall has taken a modern periodic table and color-coded the modern elements with the four classical elements. Gaseous elements such as hydrogen are colored blue for "air." Bromine and mercury, the two elements that remain liquid at room temperature and pressure, are colored dark blue for "water." Radioactive elements along the bottom of the table whose isotopes have only extremely short half-lives are red for "fire," with the rest of the chart filled in brown for "earth." The "earth" region includes many elements which are radioactive but whose half-lives are greater than 1 day.

The title text says that mercury should be classified as "wet earth". While it's a liquid, it has a very high surface tension so even large drops will stick together and may seem almost like a gel.

===Table Sections===
{| class=wikitable
! scope="col" | Section
! scope="col" | Real table
! scope="col" | Elements contained
! scope="col" | Explanation
|-
| Air || All noble gases and most reactive nonmetals || Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon, Helium, Chlorine, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, Radon || These elements are a gas at room temperature, so they are grouped into "Air".
|-
| Water || One metal and one nonmetal || Bromine, Mercury || These elements are liquid at room temperature, so they are grouped into “Water”.
|-
| Fire || One alkali metal and many synthetic metals ||  || These are all highly radioactive metals with a half-life less than one day and a tendency to violently decompose at standard temperature and pressure, hence they are classified as "Fire".
|}

This comic is similar to [[2913: Periodic Table Regions]], which also groups elements using unconventional methods.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Title text: Classical Periodic Table]

[A diagram in the shape of the periodic table of elements is split into labeled colored regions.  Each region is labeled with a large letter over a word in smaller letters.]

[The regions and colors are as follows:
* A: Air: light blue: Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Chlorine, and the noble gases.
* W: Water: dark blue: Bromine and Mercury.
* F: Fire: red-orange: Astatine, Francium, and everything from Mendelevium onwards.
* E: Earth: brown: everything else, the majority of the diagram.
]

{{comic discussion}}