• Question: Why is hydrogen randomly away from all the other elements in the periodic table?

    Asked by Cameron :) to Jodi on 10 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Jodi Schneider

      Jodi Schneider answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      Good question! It’s not random: The periodic table is arranged from lightest to heaviest.

      Hydrogen is at the top left since it’s got the “lightest” atom: just 1 proton + 1 electron. (Oxygen, for instance, is about 16 times heavier than hydrogen — it’s #8 on the periodic table because it has 8 protons + 8 electrons.)

      Why is there so much space between hydrogen to everything else? THAT is a REALLY good question. The “periodic” part means that certain patterns repeat — some basic chemical building blocks (“the elements” like Hydrogen and Oxygen) are more like each other than others. The columns in the periodic table are like families.

      The periodic table is only 145 years old — figuring out WHICH elements were more like one another, and which ones belonged to the same “family”– was a question working chemists asked, especially in the 1800’s!

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