Chemistry, like any science, requires precision. The data presentation system in this field of knowledge has been developed for centuries, and the current standard is an optimized structure containing all the necessary information for further theoretical work with each specific element.
When writing formulas and equations it is extremely inconvenient to use whole names of substances, and today for this purpose one or two letters are used - chemical symbols of elements.
History
In the Ancient World, as well as in the Middle Ages, scientists used symbolic images to denote various elements, but these signs were not standardized. Only by the 13th century were attempts to systematize the symbols of substances and elements, and from the 15th century, newly discovered metals began to be designated by the first letters of their names. A similar naming strategy has been applied in chemistry to this day.
Current status of the naming system
To date, more than one hundred and twenty chemical elements are known, some of which are extremely difficult to find in nature. It is not surprising that as far back as the middle of the 19th century, science knew only 63 of them existed, and there was no single naming system, no integral system for the presentation of chemical data.
The last problem was solved in the second half of the same century by the Russian scientist D. I. Mendeleev, relying on unsuccessful attempts by his predecessors. The naming process continues today - there are several elements with numbers from 119 and higher, conditionally indicated in the table by the Latin abbreviation of their serial number. Symbols of chemical elements of this category are pronounced according to the Latin rules for reading numerals: 119 - ununified (letters. "One hundred and nineteenth"), 120 - unbinyl ("one hundred and twenty") and so on.
Most of the elements have their own names, originating from Latin, Greek, Arabic, German roots, in some cases reflecting the objective characteristics of substances, and in others acting as unmotivated symbols.
The etymology of some elements
As mentioned above, some names and symbols of chemical elements are based on objectively observed signs.
The name phosphorus, glowing in the dark, comes from the Greek phrase "carry light." When translating into Russian, there are a lot of "talking" names: chlorine - "greenish", bromine - "foul smelling", rubidium - "dark red", indium - "indigo". Since the chemical symbols of the elements are given in Latin letters, the direct connection of the name with the substance for the native speaker of the Russian language usually goes unnoticed.
There are more subtle associations in the name. So, the name selenium comes from the Greek word meaning "moon." This happened because in nature this element is a satellite of tellurium, whose name in the same Greek means "Earth".
Niobium is likewise named. According to ancient Greek mythology, Niobe is the daughter of Tantalus. The chemical element tantalum was discovered earlier and in its properties is similar to niobium - thus, the logical father-daughter relationship was projected onto the "relationship" of chemical elements.
Moreover, tantalum got its name in honor of a famous mythological character not by chance. The fact is that obtaining this element in its pure form was fraught with great difficulties, due to which scientists turned to the phraseology “Tantalum Flour”.
Another curious historical fact is that the name platinum literally translates as "silver", that is, something similar, but not as valuable as silver. The reason is that this metal melts much harder than silver, and therefore for a long time did not find application and did not represent special value.
The general principle of naming elements
When looking at the periodic table, the first thing that catches your eye is the names and symbols of chemical elements. It is always one or two Latin letters, the first of which is a capital letter. The choice of letters is determined by the Latin name of the element. Despite the fact that the roots of words come from ancient Greek, and from Latin, and from other languages, according to the standard of naming, Latin endings are added to them.
It is interesting that most of the characters to the native speaker of the Russian language will be intuitive: aluminum, zinc, calcium or magnesium, the student easily remembers the first time. Things are more complicated with those names that differ in the Russian and Latin versions. A student may not remember right away that silicon is silicon, and mercury is hydrargyrum. Nevertheless, this will have to be remembered - the graphic image of each element is oriented to the Latin name of the substance, which will appear in chemical formulas and reactions as Si and Hg, respectively.
To remember such names, it is useful for students to perform exercises such as: "Set the correspondence between the symbol of a chemical element and its name."
Other naming methods
The names of some elements came from the Arabic language and were "stylized" under Latin. For example, sodium got its name from the root base, meaning "seething substance." Arabian roots are also traced in the names of potassium and zirconium.
The German language also had an impact. From it come the names of such elements as manganese, cobalt, nickel, zinc, tungsten. The logical connection is not always obvious: for example, nickel is an abbreviation for the word meaning "copper devil."
In rare cases, the names were translated into Russian in the form of tracing paper: the hydrogenium (literally “giving birth to water”) turned into hydrogen, and the carbonone became carbon.
Names and place names
More than a dozen elements are named after various scientists, including Albert Einstein, Dmitry Mendeleev, Enrico Fermi, Alfred Nobel, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, Marie Curie and others.
Some names came from other proper names: names of cities, states, countries. For example: Muscovy, Dubnium, Europium, Tenessin. Not all toponyms will seem familiar to a native speaker of the Russian language: it is unlikely that a person without cultural background recognizes the Japanese name Nihon in the word nichony (lit .: Country of the rising sun), and in the hafnium - the Latin version of Copenhagen. Finding out even the name of your native country in the word ruthenium is not an easy task. Nevertheless, Russia in Latin is called Ruthenium, and it is in honor of it that the 44th chemical element is named.
The names of the cosmic bodies appear in the periodic table: the planets of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, the
asteroid Pallas. In addition to the names of the characters of ancient Greek mythology (Tantalum, Niobium), there are Scandinavian ones: thorium, vanadium.
Periodic table
In the periodic table that is familiar to us today, bearing the name of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, the elements are presented in series and periods. In each cell, a chemical element is indicated by a chemical symbol, next to which other data are presented: its full name, serial number, electron distribution over the layers, relative atomic mass. Each cell has its own color, which depends on whether the s-, p-, d- or f- element is highlighted.
Principles of Recording
When recording isotopes and isobars, a mass number is put on the top left of the symbol of the element - the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. In this case, the atomic number representing the number of protons is placed at the lower left.
The charge of the ion is written on the top right, and the number of atoms is indicated on the same side from the bottom. Symbols of chemical elements always begin with a capital letter.
National Recording Options
In the Asia-Pacific region, there are options for writing the symbols of chemical elements based on local methods of writing. In the Chinese notation, signs of radicals are used, followed by hieroglyphs in their phonetic meaning. Symbols of metals are preceded by the sign "metal" or "gold", gases - by the radical "steam", non-metals - by the hieroglyph "stone".
In European countries, there are also situations where the signs of elements during recording differ from those recorded in international tables. For example, in France, nitrogen, tungsten and beryllium have their own names in the national language and are indicated by the corresponding symbols.
Finally
Studying at school or even a higher educational institution, memorizing the contents of the entire periodic table is not required at all. In memory should be kept the chemical symbols of the elements that are most often found in formulas and equations, and occasionally viewed from time to time on the Internet or in a textbook.
However, in order to avoid mistakes and confusion, it is necessary to know how the data are structured in the table, in which source to find the required data, clearly remember what element names differ in the Russian and Latin versions. Otherwise, you can accidentally take Mg for manganese, and N for sodium.
To get practice at the initial stage, do the exercises. For example, indicate the symbols of chemical elements for a randomly taken sequence of names from the periodic table. As you gain experience, everything will fall into place and the question of remembering this basic information will disappear by itself.