Alchemical Table of Elements

oshron

oshron

i revisited this post of mine recently and decided to put some more effort into it (though i can't make an updated version of the table because i still haven't found my Photoshop disk)

i've set up some criteria for this:
-- all elements discovered before 1789, when Antoine Lavoisier published the first periodic table, use alchemical symbols (though many will have to be made up since not all of the elements discovered before then were ascribed a symbol IOTL
-- all elements discovered after 1789 use letter designations, though some may have different names due to the butterflies of other changes (ex: einsteinium would either have a different name or not be discovered at all by TTL's present-day due to differences with the development of nuclear weapons)
-- specifically alchemical/archaic names are used for all elements discovered before the time of Nicholas Flamel (i figured he was as good a standard to use as any), though the only options that have really presented themselves in this case are "cyprium" (instead of "copper"), "argentum" (silver), "athimar/astimmi" (antimony), "hydrargyrum/quicksilver" (mercury), and "spelter" (zinc)

now, for the most part, i started this thread so that i can pose some questions as to what symbols i can/should use for certain elements. i have a decent set of them in the word document that i'm organizing all this into, and at the moment am mainly looking for where they'll be going. wherever possible i'll be using astronomical signs, and maybe astrological ones, too.

what i'm having trouble deciding on right now, though, is where the symbols of the four classical elements fit in:
Earth
20px-Alchemy_earth_symbol.svg.png
(at the moment it's a toss-up between carbon, due to its relation to coal, and cobalt)
Water
20px-Alchemy_water_symbol.svg.png
(i've assigned this one to hydrogen)
Air
20px-Alchemy_air_symbol.svg.png

Fire
20px-Alchemy_fire_symbol.svg.png
(i'm starting to think this one might be fitting for oxygen)


any help on this?
 

Young Lochinvar

This is a great idea.

I'd suggest making the Air symbol either oxygen or nitrogen and have the fire symbol as phosphorus.

Have you considered using the alchemical symbol for Stone (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stone_symbol.svg) as the symbol for Silicon?

I'd also suggest using the Astrological symbol for Uranus for Uranium (1789)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Neptune_symbol.svg)

Finally I'd make the case for renaming Chlorine as Muriaticum. Chlorine at the time of 1789 was known as 'Dephlogisticated muriatic acid air' and was thought to be a compound of the as of yet unpurified element Muriaticum. It was only later that they decided it was an element on its own and renamed it after the Greek 'Khloros' meaning pale green. I could see chemists instead of making a new name reapplying the name Muriaticum.

Good Luck.
 
oshron

oshron

unfortunately, silicon was discovered in 1823 and thus falls outside the criteria for elements receiving alchemical symbols. but the symbol for stone will work well elsewhere ;) i've also already addressed uranium. muriaticum is up in the air.
 
NHBL

NHBL

Interesting idea...

I suspect that, after the development of the typewriter, a second, letter, symbol will arise for the ones with alchemical symbols. Most typewriters won't have the capability to produce the symbols, and people writing scientific papers will need them. The symbols might get reduced to very formal writing, and the periodic tables on the wall in all chemistry classrooms. The ones in classrooms will likely also have the letter symbol under the classic symbol.
 

Mark E.

And while we're at it, isn't it a little strange that a single tiny village in Sweden, Ytterby, provided the name for no less than four elements?
Click to expand...

No more strange that if we remember that "Ernest Lawrence invented the cyclotron in Berkley, California, in the United States of America," we have the namesakes of four trans-uranium elements. The neighborhood looks like an American immigration roster: Fermi (Italian), Einstein (Jewish), Curie (Polish), Mendeleev (Russian), Nobel (Swedish).
 
oshron

oshron

okay, before i collapse from exhaustion and go to sleep, i thought i'd just toss out what elements are still missing symbols for the Alchemic Table:

nitrogen
nickel
magnesium
manganese
barium
chlorine
molybdenum
tungsten
tellurium
strontium (though i have an idea for this one, i'm missing the appropriate symbol)
zirconium



for those wondering, the symbol i'm thinking of for strontium, in the absence of any other is.....a dog :p
 

Simreeve

Nitrogen was also known as 'Azote', which means something like "lifeless" or "not life-supporting" (because of it being the part of Air that we don't actually use directly...), so maybe a symbol reflecting that aspect?
 
oshron

oshron

luckily, i was able to come up with symbols for all of the pre-1789 elements except for cobalt. here's what i have, in order of discovery (ones which can't be posted directly are linked or described):

  • copper
  • lead ♄
  • gold
  • iron (this is actually an alternate symbol for the planet Mars; iron is associated with Mars the deity, and i honestly wanted to avoid using the Mars sign since it already has much more universal associations with the male gender; for the same reason, copper's association with Venus is avoided by not using the Venus sign)
  • silver (a crescent moon is used)
  • carbon (this is a symbol for coal, which is ultimately where the word "carbon" comes from)
  • tin ♃
  • antimony ♁
  • arsenic
  • mercury ☿
  • sulfur
  • zinc (only one of these will be used; i'm currently leaning towards using the one on the far right)
  • phosphorus (an inverted pentagram; apparently the name comes from the Greek Φωσφόρος, "light-bearer," which is translated into Latin as Lucifer)
  • nitrogen
  • platinum
  • nickel
  • bismuth
  • magnesium
  • hydrogen (an inverted triangle, e.g., the alchemic symbol for water)
  • manganese
  • barium (this is actually another symbol for phosphorus, because barium has phosphorescent glowing qualities)
  • oxygen (a triangle, e.g, the alchemic symbol for fire; while air is more obvious, fire depends on oxygen and it's also partly based on the defunct phlogiston theory, which relates to combustion and was superseded by oxygen, iirc)
  • chlorine Ө (i'm using a Cyrillic letter here, but the symbol is virtually identical; it's the alchemic symbol for salt, which is apparently the most common compound of chlorine)
  • molybdenum (this is actually an alternate symbol for lead, which molybdenum was historically mistaken for)
  • tungsten (this is the alchemic symbol for stone posted earlier, since tungsten means "heavy stone"
  • tellurium (an inverted triangle with a horizontal line through it, e.g., the alchemic symbol for earth, since the element was named after the Roman god of earth)
  • strontium (i'll be creating the actual symbol in Photoshop when i get the chance, but it's a dog :p)
  • uranium ♅
  • zirconium (this one is a little convoluted: zirconium comes from zircon, zircon is also called hyacinth, Hyacinth was a Greek mythological hero, Hyacinth is sometimes identified with Apollo, one of Apollo's symbols is the lyre)

as long as i have this thread open, does anyone have any idea where a fictional rare earth element could fit into the periodic table? it has particular conductive properties, is red in color, and was technically known for centuries but only discovered in 1938. i don't know anything about where it would be placed except that it's atomic number is determined by the number of protons, and i don't want to just tack it onto the end or something. any help on this?
 

Ashtagon

oshron said:
as long as i have this thread open, does anyone have any idea where a fictional rare earth element could fit into the periodic table?
Click to expand...

As long as you are sticking to real science, there is no place it could fit. Scientists actually realised certain elements must exist because not all the slots in the logical structure of the table were filled by the known elements. They intentionally searched for these elements because they knew what their physical properties should be due to the location where they were expected in the table. All the missing links have now been filled, except for the heavy ones (which are all believed to have half-lives measured in fractions of a second).

Asimov's essay on the discovery of Yttrium and its related elements is rather relevant in this regard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability might also be a place fr your fictional element.
 
oshron

oshron

Ashtagon said:
As long as you are sticking to real science, there is no place it could fit. Scientists actually realised certain elements must exist because not all the slots in the logical structure of the table were filled by the known elements. They intentionally searched for these elements because they knew what their physical properties should be due to the location where they were expected in the table. All the missing links have now been filled, except for the heavy ones (which are all believed to have half-lives measured in fractions of a second).

Asimov's essay on the discovery of Yttrium and its related elements is rather relevant in this regard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability might also be a place fr your fictional element.
Click to expand...

thank you very much :) this'll probably solve all my problems concerning this (i recently came up with a few other ideas for fictional elements, mainly as homages and shout-outs to other fiction, which could also fit into this area). to make things interesting, i think i'll use alchemical symbols for these ones, or have it up in the air, or alternatively mix it up using letter signs and other symbols at the same time.

...erm, any idea how the island of stability would look on an actual periodic table? :eek:
 
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oshron

oshron

hope it's okay if i bump my own thread. i've done some sorting lately and, in addition to having symbols for all of OTL's pre-1789 elements except for cobalt and technically strontium (i have the symbol in mind, but i'll need to construct it in photoshop when i make the actual table), and i've just recently gone through all the other elements in search of alternative names for other elements. while i've made decisions for most of them, i'd like some second opinions on the remainder. most/all of these are taken directly from relevant Wikipedia articles:

** antimony -- may be renamed athimar, astimmi, stibium, or antimonium
** magnesium -- may be renamed magnium
** barium -- may be renamed baryta
** iridium -- this one needs to be renamed something based on Arcus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Iris (there's a consistent Roman naming scheme ITTL with few exceptions; for the most part i'm just unsure of how to form an element name based on Arcus since it doesn't lend itself to it as much as, say, Neptune)
** boron -- may be renamed boracium
** selenium -- this one needs to be renamed something based on Luna, the Roman equivalent to Selene, using the same criteria as above; possibilities i came up with are lunaium, lunarium, and lunium
** bromine -- may be renamed muride
** erbium -- may be renamed ytterbium (yes, there's a later element named that; this change here would require one later as well)
** terbium -- may be renamed ytterbium for the same reasons and results as above
** helium -- needs to be renamed something based on Sol, teh Roman equivalent to Helios; possibilities i've devised include solium and solarium
holmium -- may be renamed stockholmium, as the OTL element was named after Stockholm
** ytterbium -- may be renamed yttrium, ytterbia, erbium, or terbium, partly depending on earlier changes
** scandium -- may be renamed scandinavia, as the OTL element was named after Scandinavia
** praesodymium -- may be renamed prasemit or prasemitium
** dysprosium -- may be renamed berkelium (which would require OTL's berkelium to be renamed as well)
** lutetium -- may be renamed celtium or cassiopeium

i'll provide full information for the list of alchemic elements once i've figured out the rest of these. any help?
 
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oshron

oshron

i hope it's okay to bump my thread with some real progress: i've completed the Alchemic Table!

just so everyone knows, this is the version of the table used in my ASB ATL, which has some name changes to certain elements because of other, unrelated changes to the timeline (you'll
notice that helium and iridium, for instance, are called solarium and arconium here--that's because they're named after the Greek mythological figures of Helios and Iris IOTL, while ITTL there
is a consistent use of Roman names over Greek ones across all languages, so the Roman Sol and Arcus are used instead; and before you asked about ones like tyrium and osirium and
poseidium, those ones are actually named after the planets, not the gods, and the planets have their own separate naming scheme ITTL). i may well make another version of this later
with OTL names over the altered ones (and the one joke symbol removed :p) and maybe another even later on with EVERY symbol replaced by an alchemical one, even if i have to make them
up as i go along

Alchemic Table of Elements.png
 
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oshron

oshron

i realize that my thread here is more than a year old, but i thought it'd be better to bump it than make a new one for just a short query.

i decided to look further into symbols for strontium since it remains the only element on here which has a fictional symbol (it's a reference to Strontium Dog) and happened to find one that might work. i don't know how credible any of these symbols here are, (found it on here) but it's probably better than literally making one up. it's on the far right, second row down

chemical-element-icons-set-1-black-circle-series-vector-id479195060


any thoughts or opinions on if i should use this one instead or just keep the random pop culture reference?
 

edvardas

You could also use the Chinese elements. Since wood is mostly carbon, the symbol for carbon would be wood. And since iron is the most abundant metal, the symbol for iron would be metal.
 
oshron

oshron

that'd probably be used for some of the post-Lavoisier elements (i've decided on a provision that, just for the fun of it/completion, that i'll try to come up with alchemical symbols for post-Lavoisier elements, but they need to have not already been used and most of them will be completely fictional symbols--neptunium will probably get Poseidon's trident, for example) but right now i'd just like some second opinions on strontium in particular
 
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