The chemists have retained until today the obsolete prejudice that 0 is not a number equivalent with any other cardinal number.
Because of this, all published periodic tables are missing 1 chemical element.
Ignoring the artificial oganessian (of which it is not possible to make more than a few atoms that decay instantly), the column of the noble gases must have 7 noble gases that are encountered in nature: neutron (Z=0), helium (Z=2), neon (Z=10), argon (Z=18), krypton (Z=36), xenon (Z=54) and radon (Z=86).
Of these 7, the first and the last, i.e. neutron and radon are unstable and decay quickly, while the other 5 are stable.
Neutron does not enter in chemical combinations, but the same is true for the other light noble gases, helium and neon, so this does not make it distinct from the other chemical elements. Like also technetium and promethium, neutron is a chemical element that does not have any beta-stable isotope (because the beta-stable isobar with A=1 has Z=1, i.e. it is an isotope of hydrogen).
Fixed the Safari bug, replaced CSS transform-origin (broken in Safari on SVG) with native SVG animateTransform which works everywhere.
Also, you can now drag the "Year" slider on the main table to see how the periodic table looked at any point in history. Undiscovered elements fade to near-invisible. Ancient elements (no known discovery date) stay visible.
Beautiful. Another approach to visualizing the discovery of elements would be a "time travel" feature, where you see a timeline with just years below the table and can click on a year to see how the table looked that year.
Made the moible X 36px now, so easier to close. And removed uses and fun fact clues that gave away answers, replaced with density, melting point, electronegativity, and group number
I can indeed see some UI patterns that are indicative of vibe coding. So what?
Did something like this exist before, with the same level of interactivity?
I certainly had not come across it. Should Show HN be exclusive to hand-crafted code that demonstrate software mastery? Where things are going, that would be a slippery slope.
I think we should be celebrating what is possible using this new generation of tools, and how the reduced barrier to entry will result in more creativity and experimentation. As for those who are asking for AI use disclosure, why stop there? Why not also ask for disclosure of the use of any libraries or templates that made implementing it a bit easier?
I would also like to add a personal perspective. Each academic and teacher has their own take on things, their own narrative which distinguishes them from the rest. And in most cases, this unique perspective has so far been expressed through a combination of spoken words, handouts, and slides.
Yet, when it came to interactive demonstrations and digital tools, we were at the mercy of wildly overpriced SaaS products, or dependent on TAs to implement some version of our vision. The homebrewed teaching aid that conveyed concepts exactly the way we wanted was simply out of reach, unless we were prepared to dedicate months of work, at the expense of other commitments.
> Did something like this exist before, with the same level of interactivity?
Yes, many of them. There have been online interactive tables of the elements since the early days of the web, and even before that they were available on DVD-ROM encyclopedias — I think Encarta had one.
You’re kind of talking to a straw man here. I didn’t read anything against the use of AI, just that they’d rather not spend time reviewing AI code. This is reasonable not to want to spend time reviewing something the author hasn’t spent that much time on. Maybe the preference would be to review AI code with AI, but we need to know in order to make that choice.
Every Show HN should come with an AI disclosure detailing exactly how much AI was used to create it. It's not that using AI is bad per se, but I don't want to be a human critiquing an AI's work, it's hard to respond if I don't know who/what built it.
We're considering how to improve the way Show HNs are evaluated and presented.
Lately we've had to think deeply about exactly what has changed about Show HNs in the era of AI-generated code, and one way of thinking about it is that code-generation has basically eaten everything that used to be interesting about most Show HN posts. I.e.: What were the obstacles to making it work? What approaches did you try that didn't work? What was the breakthrough that made it work? What do you learn?
So, we need a new way of evaluating the ways in which a project may be interesting to the HN audience, and in the way project creators convey that in their post. It will take time for new conventions to emerge, but we're doing what we can to help find them.
For now, please don't post comments like this. It arguably counts as snark, a swipe, curmudgeonliness, a generic tangent, or other breaches of the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
If you think something is unfit for HN, please email us (hn@ycombinator.com) and we'll take a look.
I didn't intend it as a swipe, more as an invitation for the creator to write a comment explaining the development process.
I have no problem with people using AI to make things, even for a Show HN. I myself use AI as does I assume almost everyone on HN nowadays.
I do have a problem with if something was made entirely with AI and the OP didn't disclose that fact. I'm not saying that this OP did that, but if they don't say either way then all I can do is make my best guess, which could be wrong.
IMO it would be useful if the description on Show HN was made mandatory so that creators can introduce their projects. The days when you can just let your work speak for itself are long gone.
It’s funny… my initial reaction to your comment was that it’s a bit persnickety to expect that. However, I’m coming around to agreeing. I recently spent a non-trivial amount of time responding to a PR into one of my projects. I did have a sense it was mostly AI, but the changes were reasonable with a bit of adjustment. Wrote some feedback and guidance for the first time contributor and bam, they closed the PR, haven’t heard back.
But yes, people generally do not review and comment on compiled code. If your source is written by AI, why is it a surprise people might be hesitant to spend their time reviewing what it produced?
You had to change the end because following it through actually made total sense. You kinda pulled a trick, no doubt to convince yourself if I’m being fair to you.
This has (at least) one error: silver is not the most thermally-conductive element (carbon is, as diamond). It is the most thermally-conductive metal.
Only pointing this out because it is not quite a reference source, yet.
—Electrician, former chemist.
The chemists have retained until today the obsolete prejudice that 0 is not a number equivalent with any other cardinal number.
Because of this, all published periodic tables are missing 1 chemical element.
Ignoring the artificial oganessian (of which it is not possible to make more than a few atoms that decay instantly), the column of the noble gases must have 7 noble gases that are encountered in nature: neutron (Z=0), helium (Z=2), neon (Z=10), argon (Z=18), krypton (Z=36), xenon (Z=54) and radon (Z=86).
Of these 7, the first and the last, i.e. neutron and radon are unstable and decay quickly, while the other 5 are stable.
Neutron does not enter in chemical combinations, but the same is true for the other light noble gases, helium and neon, so this does not make it distinct from the other chemical elements. Like also technetium and promethium, neutron is a chemical element that does not have any beta-stable isotope (because the beta-stable isobar with A=1 has Z=1, i.e. it is an isotope of hydrogen).
Stupid bug on Android Firefox. Scrolling to the side opens description
Fixed, scrolling no longer triggers tooltips
Bug report: in Safari (28.3.1 on macOS Tahoe 26.3.1) the electrons in the configuration pane are orbiting off-centre. Ok in Firefox and Chrome.
Also, i think in the timeline you should show a summary of the discovery on hovering over the element, so you don't have to click then go back.
Otherwise — nice!
Fixed the Safari bug, replaced CSS transform-origin (broken in Safari on SVG) with native SVG animateTransform which works everywhere.
Also, you can now drag the "Year" slider on the main table to see how the periodic table looked at any point in history. Undiscovered elements fade to near-invisible. Ancient elements (no known discovery date) stay visible.
Beautiful. Another approach to visualizing the discovery of elements would be a "time travel" feature, where you see a timeline with just years below the table and can click on a year to see how the table looked that year.
added
2 Criticisms:
- On mobile, it's quite hard to hit the X to close an element description. With my specific screen size, I always end up opening Darmstadtium.
- The Element quiz hints consistently give away the answer in the penultimate or final clue.
Other than that, fun project! Thanks for sharing
Made the moible X 36px now, so easier to close. And removed uses and fun fact clues that gave away answers, replaced with density, melting point, electronegativity, and group number
I can indeed see some UI patterns that are indicative of vibe coding. So what?
Did something like this exist before, with the same level of interactivity? I certainly had not come across it. Should Show HN be exclusive to hand-crafted code that demonstrate software mastery? Where things are going, that would be a slippery slope.
I think we should be celebrating what is possible using this new generation of tools, and how the reduced barrier to entry will result in more creativity and experimentation. As for those who are asking for AI use disclosure, why stop there? Why not also ask for disclosure of the use of any libraries or templates that made implementing it a bit easier?
I would also like to add a personal perspective. Each academic and teacher has their own take on things, their own narrative which distinguishes them from the rest. And in most cases, this unique perspective has so far been expressed through a combination of spoken words, handouts, and slides.
Yet, when it came to interactive demonstrations and digital tools, we were at the mercy of wildly overpriced SaaS products, or dependent on TAs to implement some version of our vision. The homebrewed teaching aid that conveyed concepts exactly the way we wanted was simply out of reach, unless we were prepared to dedicate months of work, at the expense of other commitments.
This is no longer the case.
> Did something like this exist before, with the same level of interactivity?
Yes, many of them. There have been online interactive tables of the elements since the early days of the web, and even before that they were available on DVD-ROM encyclopedias — I think Encarta had one.
You’re kind of talking to a straw man here. I didn’t read anything against the use of AI, just that they’d rather not spend time reviewing AI code. This is reasonable not to want to spend time reviewing something the author hasn’t spent that much time on. Maybe the preference would be to review AI code with AI, but we need to know in order to make that choice.
Cool project. Could see this being useful embedded in LMS platforms or educational sites via iframe. Any plans to allow iframe embedding?
https://periodictableofelements.org/embed-code/
Needs this! Highly relevant for us geochemists
https://railsback.org/PT.html#Popups
Added, hover/tap any element now shows oxidation states, ionization energy, discovery info, and more; thanks for the suggestion
Where did you get the information in the table? I’m aware there are many open sources, I’m asking where you copied from.
Where *ClaudeCode copied from
The tap interaction is a bit janky on mobile.
thanks, fixed, first tap now shows the popup, second tap goes to the full page.
Tooltip positioning is poor. Also colours are hard to distinguish and layout of table could be better in mobile.
okay, tried a few more things, lmk
Every Show HN should come with an AI disclosure detailing exactly how much AI was used to create it. It's not that using AI is bad per se, but I don't want to be a human critiquing an AI's work, it's hard to respond if I don't know who/what built it.
We're considering how to improve the way Show HNs are evaluated and presented.
Lately we've had to think deeply about exactly what has changed about Show HNs in the era of AI-generated code, and one way of thinking about it is that code-generation has basically eaten everything that used to be interesting about most Show HN posts. I.e.: What were the obstacles to making it work? What approaches did you try that didn't work? What was the breakthrough that made it work? What do you learn?
So, we need a new way of evaluating the ways in which a project may be interesting to the HN audience, and in the way project creators convey that in their post. It will take time for new conventions to emerge, but we're doing what we can to help find them.
For now, please don't post comments like this. It arguably counts as snark, a swipe, curmudgeonliness, a generic tangent, or other breaches of the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
If you think something is unfit for HN, please email us (hn@ycombinator.com) and we'll take a look.
I didn't intend it as a swipe, more as an invitation for the creator to write a comment explaining the development process.
I have no problem with people using AI to make things, even for a Show HN. I myself use AI as does I assume almost everyone on HN nowadays.
I do have a problem with if something was made entirely with AI and the OP didn't disclose that fact. I'm not saying that this OP did that, but if they don't say either way then all I can do is make my best guess, which could be wrong.
IMO it would be useful if the description on Show HN was made mandatory so that creators can introduce their projects. The days when you can just let your work speak for itself are long gone.
Feels like the bottleneck shifted from building to explaining what’s actually interesting about what you built.
It’s funny… my initial reaction to your comment was that it’s a bit persnickety to expect that. However, I’m coming around to agreeing. I recently spent a non-trivial amount of time responding to a PR into one of my projects. I did have a sense it was mostly AI, but the changes were reasonable with a bit of adjustment. Wrote some feedback and guidance for the first time contributor and bam, they closed the PR, haven’t heard back.
Every Show HN should come with a disclosure detailing exactly how much compiler was used to create it.
I mean it's not that using compilers is bad, it's just that those who use them aren't real coders.
Nobody said anything about “real coders”.
But yes, people generally do not review and comment on compiled code. If your source is written by AI, why is it a surprise people might be hesitant to spend their time reviewing what it produced?
false equivalence
You had to change the end because following it through actually made total sense. You kinda pulled a trick, no doubt to convince yourself if I’m being fair to you.
you’re dialectically better than this.