The Periodic Table

This is a tribute to science and design, and more specifically, Henry D. Hubbard's 1924 design of the "Periodic Chart of Atoms". This all started when I was drawing Teller for my "Atomic Heroes" portraits. I found this photo of him with a remarkable periodic table behind him.

Edward Teller

My fiancé and I have been talking about putting together a periodic table poster for some time now and this was clearly the one to adorn our wall. After doing a little research we found some more images and discovered that it was Henry D. Hubbard's design, previously published by the Chicago-based Sargent-Welch Scientific Company. However, these days they sell far less attractive versions, with seemingly less information. I saw no option but to undertake the foolhardy task of recreating the original version.

1979 Edition, via Flickr

 Armed with a few low quality jpegs of the chart (ranging from the 1956 to 1979 versions), Wikipedia and Illustrator, I set to work. It took much longer than I expected.

While endeavouring to understand every tiny symbol on the chart, I found myself getting bogged down in quantum theory, which was frustrating, but as the table grew and I gained a wider overall understanding of the strange formulae, patterns emerged and the pieces started to click together. My real breakthrough came when, I found this pdf from Searl Solutions with a photograph of Hubbard's "KEY TO DATA" on page 22. The final pieces of this montrous puzzle were set and I was able to finish inputting accurate information on all the elements, fulfilling it's purpose of being beautiful and functional.

Henry D. Hubbard patented his table in 1924 and Sargent Welch has copyright on versions up to at least 1979, however, with no version available to buy and a strong desire to see this design honoured and used daily in my house, I have copied it. It is not for sale. If Sargent Welch has a problem with this, maybe they can start selling this wonderful original design again. Having recreated its every detail I can guarantee that it is worth the money.

Henry D. Hubbard with his creation in Popular Mechanics, Oct. 1928

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I have begun to change the design to match the black table in Teller's photo but I cannot finish it until I buy Gloucester MT. Sigh, I've got a bad case of font-lust.

Also, the Hubbard periodic table made a guest appearance in the final part of Jim Al-Khalili's fantastic Shock and Awe documentary on the BBC. If you've never heard of Jim Al-Khalili, he's the saviour of science on television, always informative, never flashy or dumbed-down like a certain show starting with H. Between him, Attenborough and The Sky at Night, maybe things'll be alright for educational television after all.

William Shockley : The father of Silicon Valley and "a git".