Know your rhodium from your ruthenium
Tom Lehrer wrote a song about it, Daniel Radcliffe knows it off by heart, and now the Periodic Table in all its glory has come to AUT.
Over a recent weekend, images of the 118 elements that make up the table, were placed in order in the entrance of the School of Science’s WS building.
The initiative was the brainchild of chemistry professor Allan Blackman, who explains: “I was staring at the tiled floor of the WS foyer one day and, in a rare flash of inspiration, figured out that each tile could be used for an element of the periodic table. I then got the photographic card deck of the elements that I’ve had for forever, went and laid these out one weekend and found they would fit perfectly.
“I wrote to Theodore Gray, the author and photographer of the cards, telling him what we were planning and asked if we could scan the cards and increase their size. He wrote back saying it was a great idea and that he’d supply us the hi-res art files for all the elements free of charge – extraordinarily generous.”
Allan then liaised with Pen, David and Matthew at AUT Estates while his colleague, chemistry lecturer Dr Emma Davison, advised that each element could be printed onto a hard-wearing vinyl ‘sticker’ which could be applied individually to the floor tiles. The rest, as Allan says, is history.
So head over to WS to walk the periodic table but take the stilettos off first please!