Abstract
This article considers two important traditions concerning the chemical elements. The first is the meaning of the term “element” including the distinctions between element as basic substance, as simple substance and as combined simple substance. In addition to briefly tracing the historical development of these distinctions, I make comments on the recent attempts to clarify the fundamental notion of element as basic substance for which I believe the term “element” is best reserved. This discussion has focused on the writings of Fritz Paneth which are here analyzed from a new perspective. The other tradition concerns the reduction of chemistry to quantum mechanics and an understanding of chemical elements through their microscopic components such as protons, neutrons and electrons. I claim that the use of electronic configurations has still not yet settled the question of the placement of several elements and discuss an alternative criterion based on maximizing triads of elements. I also point out another possible limitation to the reductive approach, namely the failure, up to now, to obtain a derivation of the Madelung rule. Mention is made of some recent similarity studies which could be used to clarify the nature of ‘elements’. Although it has been suggested that the notion of element as basic substance should be considered in terms of fundamental particles like protons and electrons, I resist this move and conclude that the quantum mechanical tradition has not had much impact on the question of what is an element which remains an essentially philosophical issue.
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Notes
This term is the English translation of Paneth’s “Grundstoff” as suggested by his son Heinz Post.
I am introducing this new terminology in the hope of achieving greater clarification.
I thank a reviewer for encouraging me to think more carefully about this terminology. Whereas I have spoken of “combined element” in several lectures and the earlier draft of this paper, I now think that “combined simple substance” may be a more appropriate term. This means that the term ‘element’ could be reserved to only mean ‘basic substance’.
I would even venture to suggest that maintaining Paneth’s ‘metaphysical’ understanding of the concept of ‘element’ might allow one to achieve some continuity with the ancient and alchemical notions of elements and compound formation.
As a matter of fact it is not entirely clear that Mendeleev ever made the claim about elements as basic substances that Paneth attributes to him and that has been largely taken for granted by contemporary philosophers of chemistry who have written on this topic.
Another question that I claim quantum mechanics has not clarified is the nature of elements in the fundamental sense discussed in the earlier parts of this article.
Some even claim that an appeal to the nature of gas phase isolated atoms represents an appeal to elements as basic substances as discussed in the previous section on this paper (Bent 2006).
Since I have discussed this issue in previous publications I will not do so again here (Scerri 2004).
Not everybody agrees that it is the duty of physics to derive or explain the Madelung rule. Some point to its approximate nature in that it appears to show about twenty exceptions, namely the anomalous electronic configurations starting with the atoms of chromium and copper. Others believe that it may first be necessary to explain the Madelung rule via group theory, before turning to a quantum mechanical explanation. They point to the discovery of the omega minus particle which was predicted by Gell-Mann and Ne’eman by the use of group theory well before a quantum mechanical explanation of quantum chromo-dynamics. One such proposal comes from Pieter Thyssen who is actively seeking such a group theoretical understanding of the Madelung rule (unpublished talk at 2011 meeting of ISPC in Bogota, Colombia). He is part of a long-standing tradition of group-theoretical work mainly carried out in the former Soviet Union.
My brief mention of reduction and emergence may not be sufficiently sensitive to the range of positions that these terms have been taken to represent. This is not the place to enter into a review of the large literature on these topics. I do however want to suggest that the relationship between the periodic table and quantum mechanics is a fertile ground for these more general philosophical debates.
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Scerri, E.R. What is an element? What is the periodic table? And what does quantum mechanics contribute to the question?. Found Chem 14, 69–81 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-011-9124-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-011-9124-y