Solutions to Puzzles

Here are the solutions for the puzzles posted this month:
Element Crossword
Elements Word Search
Element Honor Roll Word Search
Spellements

Element Honor Roll Word Search

Here's another word-search puzzle. This one includes all the names listed in the Element Honor Roll. Remember that you need a Google (Gmail) account to access this document.

Who found the elements?

Who found all of these elements? Many, like gold, silver, and copper, have been known since ancient times, and no one knows who actually discovered them. Except for technetium (Tc, #43), all of the elements from hydrogen (H, #1) through neptunium (Np, #93) are found on earth. However, many of them weren't actually discovered until the 1800's and even into the 1900's. This was usually because they were rare, or were mixed in with other elements. Sometimes, it's even hard to tell who actually first identified an element because different people found it at around the same time. Also, who gets the credit - the person who realizes that there's a new element in a piece of rock, or the person who first makes the element in pure form? The elements from plutonium (Pu, #94) on up were all created artifically by smashing together smaller atoms, and all of that work was done in the mid- to late 1900's or later - and there were still some arguments about who made which element first!

We're Expecting (A New Element Name)!

In 1996, German scientists created a few atoms of Element #112, but up until now, it hasn't had a name, so you won't find it on most Periodic Tables. However, in a few months, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), which is in charge of such things, is expected to approve the name copernicium, with the symbol Cn. It's named after Copernicus, the Polish astronomer who first seriously proposed (in 1543) that the planets, such as the earth, revolved around the sun. So, welcome to the world of chemistry, copernicium!

More Spellements

If you enjoyed solving the Spellement puzzles posted a few weeks ago, you'll probably like these as well:

Elemental Geography

Many places and geographical features (rivers, mountains, etc.) in the U.S. are named after chemical elements or chemical compounds. Are there any near you?

You can search for by state or by chemical name at the Chemical Gazeteer, which is on Dr. B's website at Ramapo College. Note: a "gazeteer" is basically a dictionary of geographical names.

Water Break

Here's a way that you can break the compound water into its elements - hydrogen and oxygen - using electricity.

What you'll need:
2 6-8" pieces of insulated copper hookup wire
4 alligator clips
Wire strippers
Water
Small glass or jar (not made of metal!)
Two pencil "leads" (for mechanical pencils, they're really made of carbon)
Tape
9-V battery

First you'll need to put together the wires; you'll probably need an adult to help with this step. Cut the wire to the length indicated, then strip about 1/2" of insulation from each end. Connect an alligator clip to each end.

Put about 2" of water into the glass or jar. Stand the pencil leads up into the water about 1" apart. The tops should extend above the rim of the glass. Tape the leads to the sides of the jar. Clip one end of each wire to the top of each lead. They break easily, so be careful. Connect the other ends to the battery terminals. There is now be a path for the electricity to flow from one battery terminal, down the wire to the lead, through the water to the other lead, up the other wire, and back through the battery.

Watch the leads carefully. After a few minutes, you should see bubbles forming. They are not filled with air. The bubbles around one lead are hydrogen gas; the bubbles around the other are oxygen. You have successfully split the compound water into its two elements!

When you're done, just unhook the wires from the battery and take everything apart. Throw the water away and wash the glass.

Elements, Compounds, and PB&J Sandwiches

You hear the words "element" and "compound", "atoms" and "molecules", but do you know how they are related? Well, Dr. B is here to tell you, using the analogy of a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. Let me explain...

Elements are the basic building blocks of matter. Elements are composed of tiny, tiny atoms. Compounds are combinations of elements made up of very, very small molecules. Picture a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, and a loaf of bread sitting on the kitchen counter. Is this a PB&J sandwich? No, not yet. But you can use these "elements" to create a "compound", a delicious PB&J sandwich. Get two slices of bread, spread a little peanut butter on one and a little jelly on the other, put them together, and presto! - a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich:

In the same way, cadium (gray balls) and sulfur (yellow balls), which are two elements, can be combined to make the compound cadmium sulfide, which is used in photocells:

In a similar way, you can combine:

• the elements hydrogen and oxygen to make water, or
• the elements sodium and chlorine to make table salt, or
• the elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen to make sugar, or
• the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen to make ibuprofen, or
• other elements to make thousands and thousands of compounds

So where do atoms and molecules come in? Atoms are simply the smallest bits of an element that are still recognizable as that element, and molecules are the tiniest bits of a compound that are still recognizable as that compound. You can have a whole loaf of bread slices, and you can divide the loaf into half, then into half again, and so on. Eventually you come to just a single slice of bread. To make it any smaller, you'd have to cut the bread, but then it's not a slice any more - it's just part of a slice. If you could keep dividing an iron nail in the same way, after a long time, you'd come down to just a single iron atom.

In a similar way, you could start separating an enormous pile of PB&J sandwiches, but sooner or later, you'd end up with one sandwich, and you couldn't divide any more without cutting it. You can have a whole tankful of methane (natural gas), a compound of carbon and hydrogen, but after dividing and dividing, eventually you'd get to one methane molecule.

Is this discussion making you hungry? Maybe you want to go make a sandwich for yourself (but check with an adult first!)!

See the Elements!

Here's a wonderful video about the elements created by Theodore Gray, the guy who built the Periodic Table table. It shows most of the elements in their pure state. The music is "The Elements", a song by Tom Lehrer, who couldn't resist all the rhyming names!

Word Search Puzzle

Here's an element-themed word search puzzle. You will need a Google or Gmail account to download this file. If you don't have one, click on the link and you can create it for free. Have fun!

Element Crossword

Do you like crossword puzzles? If you do, then check out this element-themed puzzle, which uses atomic numbers as clues. Print it out and start solving! You will need a Google or Gmail account to download this file. If you don't have one, click on the link and you can create it for free.

Spellement 1

Try this element-related puzzle! Use the symbols for the elements (found in "Meet the Elements" below) to spell out a word. Here's an example:
Do you see how the answer spells out the word "police"? See if you can solve these Spellements:

See what other words you can spell with the element symbols. Can you spell your name this way?

What's with those symbols??

If you've looked over the list of elements posted a little earlier, you may have noticed something strange about the element symbols. Some of them make perfect sense: N for nitrogen, U for uranium, even He for helium. Others are less obvious, but reasonable. You might expect zinc to be Z or Zi, instead of Zn, but at least those two letters are in the name. But who ever came up with Na for sodium, Sn for tin, Au for gold, and W for tungsten??

Many of these elements were discovered hundreds of years ago, when educated people communicated in Latin instead of English, French, German, or whatever language they spoke at home. Many symbols come from the Latin name for the element: natrium for sodium, stannum for tin, and aurum for gold. Tungsten's symbol is W because its German name is wolfram.

Meet the Elements

Here's a list of the chemical elements, showing their atomic number, name, and symbol (in parentheses). How many of them have you heard of?

1 Hydrogen (H)
2 Helium (He)
3 Lithium (Li)
4 Beryllium (Be)
5 Boron (B)
6 Carbon (C)
7 Nitrogen (N)
8 Oxygen (O)
9 Fluorine (F)
10 Neon (Ne)
11 Sodium (Na)
12 Magnesium (Mg)
13 Aluminum (Al)
14 Silicon (Si)
15 Phosphorus (P)
16 Sulfur (S)
17 Chlorine (Cl)
18 Argon (Ar)
19 Potassium (K)
20 Calcium (Ca)
21 Scandium (Sc)
22 Titanium (Ti)
23 Vanadium (V)
24 Chromium (Cr)
25 Manganese (Mn)
26 Iron (Fe)
27 Cobalt (Co)
28 Nickel (Ni)
29 Copper (Cu)
30 Zinc (Zn)
31 Gallium (Ga)
32 Germanium (Ge)
33 Arsenic (As)
34 Selenium (Se)
35 Bromine (Br)
36 Krypton (Kr)
37 Rubidium (Rb)
38 Strontium (Sr)
39 Yttrium (Y)
40 Zirconium (Zr)
41 Niobium (Nb)
42 Molybdenum (Mo)
43 Technetium (Tc)
44 Ruthenium (Ru)
45 Rhodium (Rh)
46 Palladium (Pd)
47 Silver (Ag)
48 Cadmium (Cd)
49 Indium (In)
50 Tin (Sn)
51 Antimony (Sb)
52 Tellurium (Te)
53 Iodine (I)
54 Xenon (Xe)
55 Cesium (Cs)
56 Barium (Ba)
57 Lanthanum (La)
58 Cerium (Ce)
59 Praseodymium (Pr)
60 Neodymium (Nd)
61 Promethium (Pm)
62 Samarium (Sm)
63 Europium (Eu)
64 Gadolinium (Gd)
65 Terbium (Tb)
66 Dysprosium (Dy)
67 Holmium (Ho)
68 Erbium (Er)
69 Thulium (Tm)
70 Ytterbium (Yb)
71 Lutetium (Lu)
72 Hafnium (Hf)
73 Tantalum (Ta)
74 Tungsten (W)
75 Rhenium (Re)
76 Osmium (Os)
77 Iridium (Ir)
78 Platinum (Pt)
79 Gold (Au)
80 Mercury (Hg)
81 Thallium (Tl)
82 Lead (Pb)
83 Bismuth (Bi)
84 Polonium (Po)
85 Astatine (At)
86 Radon (Rn)
87 Francium (Fr)
88 Radium (Ra)
89 Actinium (Ac)
90 Thorium (Th)
91 Protactinium (Pa)
92 Uranium (U)
93 Neptunium (Np)
94 Plutonium (Pu)
95 Americium (Am)
96 Curium (Cm)
97 Berkelium (Bk)
98 Californium (Cf)
99 Einsteinium (Es)
100 Fermium (Fm)
101 Mendelevium (Md)
102 Nobelium (No)
103 Lawrencium (Lr)
104 Rutherfordium (Rf)
105 Dubnium (Db)
106 Seaborgium (Sg)
107 Bohrium (Bh)
108 Hassium (Hs)
109 Meitnerium (Mt)
110 Darmstadtium (Ds)
111 Roentgenium (Rg)

Chemistry - It's Elemental!

The week of October 18 - 24, 2009 is National Chemistry Week, and this year's theme is the chemical elements. From hydrogen to roentgenium (and even beyond), there are over 100 elements in all! To celebrate, you'll learn interesting bits of trivia about every named element this month, will be able to solve some element-themed puzzles, and will do cool experiments involving several of the elements that are around you every day.