107 Stories About Chemistry
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There have been multitudes of such cases in the history of the Periodic System. Attempt after attempt was made to recarve it. Sometimes the attempt had some definite sense. But most often they were just the result of some authors trying to be original. . Mendeleyev's great discovery celebrated its hundredth anniversary in 1969. And to think that in the wake of this great date even serious chemists are coming to the conclusion that something will have to be changed in the Periodic System! There was a time when scientists could not bring themselves to call the elements of the zero group chemical. Now it is the other way around. It seems rather inconvenient to call the elements of the zero group inert. Hardly a month passes but several articles appear in chemical journals on the chemistry of the inert . . . sorry, the elements of the zero group. Information keeps streaming in from various countries on the synthesis of new chemical compounds of krypton, xenon and radon. Bi-, tetra-, and hexavalent xenon, tetravalent krypton - these terms, which seemed crazy only decades ago, have now become quite common. "A nightmare of xenon fluorides hangs over the Mendeleyev Table!" exclaimed an eminent scientist in horror. Though he may have been exaggerating a bit, this "nightmare" must be dispersed as soon as possible. But how? Here is what the scientists suggest: send the "zero group" concept to the archives of the history of science and place all the once inert gases in the eighth group, considering that they have eight electrons in their outer shells.
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