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PEER REVIEWS AND COMMENTS

  • Review Comments received on 04/02/2008 from Dr. Henry Bent, well-known scientist and educator, author of "New Ideas in Chemistry from Fresh Energy for the Periodic Law":
  • Date: 4.02.08

    Subject: Your emails about your elegant ADOMAH PT

    Dear Valery,

    Congratulations! Your elegant ADOMAH PT unites in a pleasing, distinctive, non arbitrary, and scientifically sound manner the theoretically significant regularities of the left step periodic table with the popular symmetry of step pyramid tables. I don't recall seeing a PT that displays so naturally values of "n". They can be computed simply from the LSPT's P and l and values (Period and block ordinal numbers), as P - l. But that requires two glances (at P and at l) and a subtraction, whereas with the APT one sees what "n" is in a single glance. On the other hand, it is the case that one has to do a little more glancing "work" to follow increasing values of Z with the APT than with the LSPT. For every gain, said Braque, there's a loss.

    My apologies for not responding to your emails sooner. I've been busy pretty much as close to 24/7...

    You might be intrigued by (if not familiar with) connections between chemists' bond diagrams and fragments of layers of close-packed spheres (on which I published in the last century, in the 1960s). If you'll give me your mailing address, I'll send you a copy of a recent collection of the essays.

    I like the flavor of your discussion. Defining "the meaning of each quantum number in terms of the PT geometry" corresponds to the stance taken in "New Ideas" (NI): regarding in the first instance "r", "l", and "P" (= n + l = r + 2l) as descriptors of the shape of the LSPT - with "n" (= r + l) an empirical "index of discontinuity" (in elements' properties on passage from the Noble Gases to the Alkali Metals).

    It is a property of the LSPT that as one mounts the steps they get shorter. That is to say: some combination of step length, L, and step "elevation", E, is constant. For a total of N steps, step height h, E(l) = h(N - l). For the LSPT, h = 2 and N = 4 (for Z through 120): i.e., E(l) = 2(4 - l) [cf. NI, p25, sect. 27]. Since L(l) = 2(2 l + 1), it follows that E + L/2 = (8 - 2 l) + (2 l + 1) = 9.

    Your TETRAHEDRON ADOMAH PT calls to mind NI's Fig. 51, p106, with the N axis replaced by "e" (Fig. 52). A companion to the APT plot of l vs. "n" with slant lines indicating values of N + l would be the LSPT plot of l vs. n + l with slant lines indicating values of "n". To get P from the APT add n and l. To get n from the LSPT, subtract l from P.

    For comparison - and to indicate virtues regarding geometrical and physical regularities of block order spdf or fdps - one might show how slant lines must be drawn for the conventional sfdp PT to show constant values of (i) "n" and (ii) "n + l". Thank you for sending me your new perspectives on periodic tables, so clearly set forth. I've enjoyed reading them.

    Cordially, Henry

  • Email received from Katya Walter, PhD of University of Texas at Austin.
  • Date: 05/07/08

    Subject: interesting!

    What a very interesting discovery! I am writing something in which I hope to be able to include your findings and cite this web site as the source. Please, keep this site up so others may refer to it.

    Katya Walter, PhD

  • Letter received from Dr. Henry Bent, June 2008:
  • Date: 6.17.08

    "The more I look at your "ADOMAH TABLE" alongside of the LSPT, the more I feel that, viewed solely from the point of view of the LSPT, you've made a fine addition to the literature on the Left-Step Table - an elegant addition overlooked, to my knowledge, by everyone, for nearly a century. To answer your question, I've not published on "tie-lines". Their use with step pyramid tables, to indicate secondary chemical kinships, has long history. I don't recall seeing them used in the manner that you've used them."

  • Email received from Geoff Seyon, M.Sc., Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Date: 08/24/08

    Subject: Magic Number Sequence

    Dear Valery Tsimmerman:

    Congratulations on this simple yet fascinating explanation of the structure of the elements at https://perfectperiodictable.com. For years scientists have been trying to explain the periodic table in a way which should have been, well, more "elementary". You've done it and I believe this will be one of the greatest discoveries if adopted by the scientific community since the Dmitri Mendeleev/Lothar Meyer discoveries in the 19th century!

    Thank you and best of luck educating the next generation of young scientists. Love the sweater! Some day PerfectPT will have them available to educate others around the world!

    Best, --Geoff

  • Email received from Gary Katz, member of ACS, inventor of the Periodic RoundTable.
  • Date: 12/16/08

    Subject: Left Step PT

    Valery,

    Thanks for your communication. It appears to me that the tetrahedral concept is novel and provides additional weight to the electronic-configuration model of the PT. Good work!

  • Philip J. Stewart: Charles Janet: unrecognized genius of the periodic system. Foundations of Chemistry. January, 2009. ISSN 1386-4238 (Print) ISSN 1572-8463 (Online):
  • "An interesting improvement to the Janet table has been made by Tsimmerman (2007), who shifts the p, d and f blocks so that each electron shell is represented by a single row (or column if turned through 90 degrees), displaying a symmetry that was not evident in the original."

  • Email from Jess Tauber of Oakland, New Jersey (USA) who first saw tetrahedral symmetry in periodic system in 1979.
  • Date: 07/05/09

    Subject: Short bio, comments

    I was both shocked and heartened to find the work- this is the first independent replication of my own discovery I've seen, ever. Valery has gone quite a bit further into the mechanics and mathematical underpinnings of the system than I ever did, and his efforts have re-energized my own interest to see what can be done with it. I'm hoping that together we can figure out the few loose ends that still remain. The periodic relation tends to be the domain of lower grade science teaching and a handful of science historians and enthusiasts, 'real' science having moved well beyond depictions. It may end up being something of an surprise when they realize that there are still things that can be learned from alternative representations of relations they thought settled long ago.

    Jess Tauber

  • Evolving Thoughts Forum. Topic: Thoughts on Periodic Table. Comment by Dr.Philip Stewart, 7:17 p.m. February 09, 2010.
  • I don't think there have been any really new representations of the Periodic System since about 1950, though Tsimmerman's Adomah PT gives added value to Janet's LSPT, which surely is the best one.

  • Dr. Pierre Demers. Author of System Quebecium

    Historical Note

    Date: 01/26/2010

  • Je remarque avec interet la contribution de Tsimmermann en 2007 et en 2008 decrivant la possibite de recourir au tetraedre pour classifier les elements chimiques. Il montre des tableaux des elements chimiques dont les constituants graphiques sont inscrits dans un tetraedre regulier... Cette contribution m’interesse parce que confirmant ce que j’ai signale des 1996 : la necessite de recourir a la geometrie du tetraedre et plus generalement a la symetrie d’ordre 4 pour comprendre la classification des atomes et leur organisation... Tsimmermann a apporte certains progres originaux a la theorie de l‘atome en recourant a la geometrie du tetraedre et a des considerations d’esthetique et de symetrie. Il a declare que le remplissage du tetraedre impose des regles de selection exigeant la succession connue des elements, jusqu’ici decrite partiellement sous les noms des «regles» empiriques de Madelung et de Hund.

  • Email from Ruben D. Osorio of Institute of Chemistry, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia, South America
  • Date: February 09, 2010

    Subject: ADOMAH Periodic Table Poster

    Dear Valery Tsimmerman: As you know I have been working on the book related to the Periodic Table. In this process I found that your design of the ADOMAH Periodic Table is very appropriate to insert images illustrating how substances look like or in what kind of applications can be used. Please let me know if you would be interested in receiving a free copy of the poster that appears in the attached figure. I designed the poster only with the purpose of experimenting. I will send you a copy of the periodic table poster based on your original design as soon as possible. I am not planning to market this design, I just want to incorporate it into the book about the periodic table that I am writing . Thanks for your comments!

    (Click here to see the poster)

  • Gryphon's Edge at WordPress.com
  • Date: April 09, 2010

    This is a profound and powerful way to visualize the periodic table of the elements – due to the fact that it mirrors 3-D physical reality.

  • Email communication received from McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited on April 20, 2011
  • Hello Mr. Tsimmerman,

    This message you may pass on to anyone who asks. Your tetrahedral periodic table was indeed published in Chemistry 11, McGraw Hill Ryerson, ISBN: 007091575X. Number of Pages: 736 (5 units); Grade Level: 11; Print run: 35,000; Language: English and French; Territory: Canadian; Rights: Print and Digital (DVD and Online formats); Publication date: August 15, 2010. My supervisor was not able to tell me which schools the book went to but assured me that it is indeed out in the educational system here in Canada. I do remember that the editors on this book were especially impressed with the table and were delighted that you allowed us to use it in this publication. I will write again for rights if other editors want to use it as well. When you have something interesting and clearly done as this is, it is not uncommon for other editors to ask for its use.

    Sincerely,

    Linda Tanaka for McGraw Hill Ryerson

  • Email from Dr. Eric Scerri author of "The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance" received on July 8, 2011.
  • Dear Valery,

    I owe you a profound apology. I finally understand the advantage of your version of the LST. It's related to something that I raised the other day when I asked whether it was n or n + l that was being represented along the bottom and you replied "both". Today I have been looking very seriously at your website and it finally clicked when I saw the pdf file on your site in which you compare the standard Janet LST with what you call "Adomah modified for comparison". As Henry Bent and Philip Stewart have remarked you have indeed produced a major advance and I applaud your efforts.

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