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I still have a vivid memory of my excitement when I first saw a chart of the periodic table of elements.

About seven years later I was given a book about the periodic table of the elements. For the first time I saw the elegance of scientific theory and its predictive power.

Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers.

I do have a strong sense of an order in the universe.

One theme I ran into over and over while writing about the periodic table was the future of energy and the question of which element or elements will replace carbon as king.

Despite its obscurity, probably no element on the periodic table has as colorful a history as antimony. Money, madness, poison, linguistics, charlatanism, sex - pretty much every theme that runs through the periodic table can be found in Element 51.

The elements, if arranged according to their atomic weights, exhibit an apparent periodicity of properties.

Most people who have encountered mercury have done so after breaking a mercury thermometer. And many of us who saw the liquid balls of mercury scatter across a floor or countertop considered the element the most beautiful on the periodic table.

Until four years ago, in fact, I was absolutely in love with the atom.