9781422279472

blood around your body. All of those things—the solids, liquids, and gases around you and in- side you—are composed of ele- ments of the periodic table. The periodic table is an ar- rangement of all the naturally occurring, and manufactured, elements known to humans at

Hydrogen and its one proton form the simplest elemental structure.

this point in time. An element is a substance that cannot be broken down into other elements. Ninety-two elements occur naturally on Earth and in space. Twenty-six more elements (and counting) have been manufactured and analyzed in a laboratory setting. These ele- ments, alone or in combination with others, form and shape all the matter around us. From the air we breathe, to the water we drink, to the bananas we eat—all these things are made of elements. These elements are organized into a chart called the periodic table. Since it was first developed in 1869, the periodic table went through several updates and reorganizations until it became the modern ver- sion of the table used today. On it, each square represents a single ele-

The Chemistry of Everyday Elements

7