Week 1 Impressions of Links

I have always been kind of freaked out by the periodic table because it seemed like this obscure, non-practical way of looking at the stuff that makes up the Earth and the Universe. I guess I can appreciate the organizational genius of the table, the way how it makes sense how the different elements are grouped together, the importance of the rows and columns, and the number of each element. But I never really felt like I understood the importance of helium or chlorine or gold by looking it up in the table and knowing what type of element it was and how many electrons it had. And in fact I know that without any of the elements our world would be completely different...but the table never gave me that knowledge. I am looking forward to see how next week's class goes and maybe I can begin to see the periodic table in a different light.