And that number doubles around finals, term papers and midterm exam time. Its popularity is pretty surprising. It's been running full-up for about four years now. There are many periodic table sites on the World Wide Web, most aimed at the college or professional level. In just a few clicks web surfers can find out that the periodic table was originally developed in 1872 by Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev, and that the table is arranged by atomic number, which generally follows atomic weight.
Users also find descriptions of carbon's uses, history, forms, compounds and isotopes.
But the really fun thing about the site for Attrep and Degidio are the questions that pour in from kids taking their first steps toward a better understanding of chemistry. I do an initial screening and answer questions that don't deal directly with chemistry, then I pass the rest to Moses. Sometimes the grammar is a bit suspect, but we try our best to supply a good answer. None of this is new to Attrep, who taught chemistry for 19 years at East Texas State University and is still teaching, not only through the periodic table site, but also at the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos. Other questions are obviously motivated by homework assignments.