• Question: were you required to memorise the Periodic Table of Elements in school? if so, how did you do it? and how does it apply in your career?

    Asked by anon-290518 on 23 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Andrew Parrott

      Andrew Parrott answered on 23 Mar 2021:

      No never the whole table. I would expect somebody doing chemistry to know the symbols of very common elements such as carbon (C) and hydrogen (H). You may have to memorise parts to pass an exam at school (whether that is a sensible test is another question!). But purpose of the table is so you don’t have to memorise all the details of all of the elements. Being able to memorise it would not help you later in your career as the periodic table is easily accessible online and in many text books. Also occasionally it is even updated with new elements added.

      Knowing how to read the table is very important, e.g. which number is the atomic number and what does that mean (number of protons in the nucleus). More important is to know why it is arranged the way it is, i.e. elements are grouped by their atomic/electronic structure and their properties, e.g. all elements in group 1 (except hydrogen) are very reactive metals.

    • Photo: Jesko Koehnke

      Jesko Koehnke answered on 23 Mar 2021:

      No, not in school but at Uni. And it was simply a case of learning all the symbols with the associated names in rows and columns. Forward and backward. Is it important? It was to pass that one exam, and it is kind of handy to have bits of this knowledge still floating around in my head when I think about problems that involve unusual elements. We use things like Ytterbium for example.

    • Photo: Zahra Rattray

      Zahra Rattray answered on 24 Mar 2021:

      We were never asked to memorize all the elements. We were expected to understand the trends and properties of materials depending on their period and group though. Learning general trends and properties will help you understand more about the world around you than memorizing all the elements. As Andrew says, you can find the periodic table online anywhere if you need to check it out.

    • Photo: Philip Camp

      Philip Camp answered on 24 Mar 2021:

      Not at school, but I did have to memorise the Periodic Table at university, as it was not given in examination papers. This sounds draconian, but there are some benefits: it’s like being fluent in a language, and not having to look up words in a dictionary. People memorise things in different ways: some are visual, and have a kind of photographic memory; others (including me) do it more by sounds, mnemonics, or phrases.

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 24 Mar 2021:

      We had to learn the first couple of rows at university but never at school. I’m also not a great fan of just rote learning something like that… it is better to understand the underlying principle behind the periodic table than simple memorise it.

    • Photo: Marcel Jaspars

      Marcel Jaspars answered on 24 Mar 2021:

      No – the table was always on the wall to use. I only use a few elements in my works so they are easy to remember (C, H, O, N, S, P and some metals like Na)

    • Photo: Soneni Ndlovu

      Soneni Ndlovu answered on 25 Mar 2021:

      No, not really but as you study chemistry, you start to pick the ones that are popular and trust me even though you may need to know a few earlier on, as you get into chemistry, it becomes natural to know these without really thinking about them.

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