In the 18th and 19th centuries, several elements were being discovered almost every decade. This profusion of new elements with an ever-widening range of properties soon began to provoke questions. Precisely how many elements were there? Had most of them already been discovered? Or would there perhaps turn out to be innumerable elements? This soon led to more profound speculations. Somehow, amongst all these elements, there must be some kind of fundamental order. Dalton had discovered that the atoms of each element had different weights — but surely there had to be more to it than this? Berzelius had noticed that elements appeared to have different electrical affinities. Likewise, there appeared to be groups of different kinds of elements with similar properties — metals which resisted corrosion (such as gold, silver and platinum), combustible alkali metals (such as potassium and sodium), colorless, odorless gases (such as hydrogen and oxygen) and so forth. Was it possible that there was some kind of fundamental pattern behind all this?
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
