• Question: How are the chemical symbols in the Periodic Table decided?

    Asked by imctaggart to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Most of them are just the first letter of the element, or with another letter if there’s already one before that (like H and He).

      The random ones that you’re probably thinking about come from the good old Romans.

      So the symbol for lead is Pb, because the Romans called lead Plumbum. Same for silver, gold, potassium, sodium, and some others I think.

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      I don’t know how elements are names – I know stars and planets have to be named officially by the International Astronomical Union, so I suppose there might be a similar organization for the elements…..

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      The early ones were named by the first person to find it. The later ones, and the newest ones we are still finding, are also named by the people who find them but they have to get permission from an organisation called … (can’t remember!)

      Some of newest ones are named after famous people, like Einsteinium.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Lots of the symbols are just the first initial of the element name, with elements beginning with the same letter taking a second letter to distinguish them. But some, like lead and silver, have symbols that seem weird – Pb and Ag… In these cases, the symbol isn’t the first letters of the name we have now, but letters from the *latin* name – which was used a lot in scientific writing when many of the elements were discovered.

      So lead becomes ‘plumbum’ becomes Pb, and Silver become ‘argent’ becomes Ag!

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