If you ever want to open a chemistry theme restaurant, you should be sure to furnish it with 118 tables — one for each element. Note that it could not be a Greek restaurant, because then the number of ...

Long before there was a periodic table of the elements, there was no need for a table — just four chairs. From ancient through medieval into early modern times, natural philosophers could count the ...

The story of the fifteenth element began in Hamburg, in 1669. The unsuccessful glassblower and alchemist Hennig Brandt was trying to find the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance that could turn ...

The heaviest element that humans have ever found is called oganesson. Each atom of the stuff packs a whopping 118 protons into its dense center. In contrast, hydrogen—the most abundant element in the ...