🚀 go-pugleaf

pk03+@andrew.cmu.edu (Paul Karol) writes:

>Are there other such misfits that don't get placed on the Periodic
>Table?  Plenty.  An anti-atom won't be there, such as an
>antiproton+antielectron=antihydrogen atom.  There are also muonium
>'atoms' with a (positive) muon and an electron, and other combinations
>as well.  The Periodic Table (in any of its hundred odd forms) is
>supposed to be a visual guide to chemical (electronic) behavior.  These
>exotic species have chemical behavior that's interesting, but scientists
>working with them don't need a table of all the usual elements to remind
>them of how it all fits together.  And the usual readers of the Periodic
>Table are rarely interested in atoms outside the conventional collection.

They could at least include a footnote of some type.  The result of not
doing so, is generations(?) of chemistry students (school chem. not university
level chem) go away thinking atoms
are the units of the elements listed in the Periodic Table. 

>Paul J. Karol
>Nuclear Chemist
>(and occassional positronium user)