It isn't called periodic by accident...and its organization is not and accident either
The word periodic as defined by the Oxford online dictionary means:
periodic (adj): appearing or occurring at intervals; via Latin from Greek periodiko / περιοδικό coming around at intervals. In technical use, periodic means "at regular or predictable or fixed intervals"
Coming around at intervals, predictable intervals, just like a clock hand always comes around the 6 o'clock hour every 12 hours - in a chronological pattern exactly the same every time. It is as if it was planned or designed purposely in an orderly manner. Hmmm. Fixed intervals, which means someone or something fixed it, established it or determined its interval.
The curiousness of order is rooted in our love of patterns and our recognition of beauty in the order of things. Conversely, usually humans have a tendency to be repulsed or we turn our noses at chaos and disorder. No mother likes the untidy bedrooms of their children. No driver likes the nut tailgating them and then doing 100 mph on the shoulder to get around breaking every traffic law on the books. No ordered society can exist for long with corruption in power and anarchy ruling on the streets. These are all samples of disorder and by their very nature lead to destruction of dissolving of structure.
Before the order of the Periodic Table (of Elements) was discovered, many chemists suspected that the elements were ordered according to some grand, well designed pattern. Not much unlike how scientists now search for the Grand Unified Theory of Physics and search in vain for the Higgs Boson (a.k.a.: the hypothetical non-existent God particle). Math and natures proclivity for order lead scientists to believe these things have to exist (they acknowledge the probability of the order but not the One who orders it...dopes). Anyway, as is almost always the case, the underlying order they discovered was far more elegant than even the most conspiracy-minded chemists could imagine.
They suspected a quaint refrain. What chemist discovered was an astounding and perfectly ordered symphony. By the early 19th century there were enough elements known that scientists could begin to look for patterns in the jumbled "mass" of particles and their properties. One of the first people to see a pattern was Johann Dobereiner (l780 - 1849), who discerned from the elemental mess what he called "triads" - groups of three elements wherein the atomic weight of the middle element was (approximately) the mean or middle between two other elements. For example, Dobereiner noted that the weight of strontium was a mean (middle) between the weights of calcium and barium.
About the mid-1800s, Jean-Baptiste Dumas a devout catholic and staunch defender of his beliefs against critics had trained to be an apothecary by trade. Since he was so well versed and familiar with weights and measurements, he noticed that elements that had the same chemical properties and increasing atomic weights could be related by simple mathematical patterns. Here were the atomic weights available to him:
nitrogen= atomic weight 14
phosphorous= atomic weight 31 [14 + 17]
arsenic= atomic weight 75 [14 + 17 + (44 x 1)]
antimony= atomic weight 119 [14 + 17 + (44 x 2)]
Unbeknown to Dumas, he had listed the elements in the exact vertical order of Group V (now recognized as 15) of the periodic table. Working with Dumas's insights, John Newlands (1837 - 1898) discovered something remarkable and even more wonderful by doing something incredibly simple and structural. He simply lined the elements up in a linear manner or straight line, in order of increasing atomic weight beginning with hydrogen the element with the lowest atomic weight. After this had been done it was like a game of Tetris...and it was like a divine pattern emerged in the very elements of Creation. Every eighth element had similar properties. He called it the "law of octaves," named after the repeating pattern of notes on a musical scale. If we look at our periodic table, we note that the elements in each vertical row have notably similar chemical properties similar to keys in music. There is also a law of octaves, and this law defines the order of the periodic table. One can easily imagine there being a designer of this table. Just like a parent that leaves a puzzle hidden under the tree at Christmas for his/His child to find. The reward is not only for the child but for the parent too. As the puzzle pieces come together the child is rewarded with the complete picture, the parent is reward by seeing the looks on the faces of their children having discovered and completed the puzzle. The look at the very moment of recognition and delight when it dawns on them the puzzle is completed and the child realizes they have done it on their own. They are a big boy or big girl. They realize this picture was right their under their nose the whole time.
The Russian Dmitri Mendeleev was the first to see the "big picture" that these puzzle pieces produced. He finally cracked the code of the periodic table of elements. Whereas Newlands had used the octaves of music as his guide, Mendeleev used cards. On each card he put the chemical element and all its known properties, including the way it combined with hydrogen and oxygen. As is the case for pattern loving creatures, he could not believe that nature would contain simply a heaps of unordered elements like so many randomly strewn playing cards. Perhaps this is because of his Christian background in childhood and a life philosphy that science must be complemented by religious and artistic sources of knowledge. He worked and reworked the cards and noticed that, when they were arranged according to increasing atomic weight, another pattern began to emerged. The chemical properties recurred periodically, or as my introduction stated: predictable or fixed intervals. He ended up putting them in vertical columns, which he labeled Group I, Group II, and so on, up to Group VIII. Believing that nature loves patterns as well, Mendeleev refused to believe that the pattern of increasing weights in chemical properties would be disrupted.
So, when there was no known element that had the requisite properties to fit into a particular group or when there was a conspicuous and suspicious leap in weight...he brazenly left a blank and he predicted that elements would be discovered to fill these blanks. He predicted the existence of an element between calcium and titanium, described its properties, and assigned it an atomic weight of 44. A few years later, in 1879, Lars Nilsen discovered it and named it "scandium."
In the end we learn something neat about science and about discovery but if we do not exact some type of appreciation for God in this predictable and fixed pattern, we totally miss the point and the beauty of the natural order. This type of predictability does not randomly or spontaneously erupt from chaos. It is purposefully created for a greater good. Where do those of the mostly godless scientific realm suppose this order spontaneously came from in a universe ruled by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy. Entropy which tells us that the universe had a finite beginning (just like the Bible) -- the moment at which it was at "zero entropy" (its most ordered possible state). Like a wind-up clock, the universe is winding down, as if at one point it was fully wound up and has been winding down ever since. Re-establishing order from a system that is tending towards disorder is improbable.
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" ~Romans 1:20
Surprisingly nature is not only ordered but ordered in a kind way that lends itself to being easily discovered and intuitively ordered. Order so that we as humans can dig down layer after layer, step by step, from what is knowable to learn more and more. Do scientists really think that they are that clever? If they do think so, why are so many baffled by what is happening at the sub-atomic level where many of these intuitive and easily discernible traits of physics begin to breakdown? Why? I'll tell you why...because man is not as clever as he thinks he is. The reasons we have made so many strides in the last few centuries is because God the creator structured things in an easy to learn manner. My guess is that man is now hitting the limits of what is deemed morally acceptable. In Physics, in Biology, Genetics, etc. I could be wrong, but speculation leads one to deduce that from here on out...knowledge is going to be harder to come by.
In the end we see the march of chemistry through history, and the lesson-based order in nature that made it possible to grasp what we already know. This order we see and understand perfectly suits man's delineating and inquisitive mind. It proudly proclaims a creation that which I believe is not the result of an indifferent and pointless cosmos as the militant atheist Richard Dawkins babbles about. A designed Creation created with a specific and divine order and purpose...just as God has designed man for. Since the time of these great discoveries by these men, many of which were devoutly religious and Christian, there has been a shift in science. A shift to completely seperate science from God. Part of the reason some of these great discoveries took place is becasue their discoverers came to the workbench with a God oriented presupposition. They assumed God existed and as such assumed certain things about their universe. Implied structure and the probably of a pattern being one of them.
One accidental ordering in the universe could be the result of chance. But nearly incalculable layers of integrated order and complexity built one upon the other defies a godless explanation of random chance. We have now discovered that we clearly live in a universe that is intricately ordered in a way that beckons to us to discover it...like a child on Christmas day discovers a puzzle box under a tree.
If this is truly accidental as science would have you believe then...there is a conspiracy taking place in the data. A conspiracy to prove science's godless point-of-view wrong. There is no other conclusion a rational person can draw from the data. Because the truth is this: If it was just random bits of data it would remain data. But it is not random unsystematized data is it? It is systematized data or ordered data. If that is true it is not just data anymore...its information. Information implies a source of intelligence. The higher the level of order the higher the level of intelligence. If we have an infinite variety of information and an infinite variety of order, then reason tells us that its source must by infinitely informed and ordered also.
Anyone for a game of charades? One syllable...sounds like dog spelled backwards. Rhymes with pod...
I in no way believe that I am a product of random chance and countless genetic mutations (tisk-tisk Mr Dawkins). I am not a hapless creature of a nihilist cosmos that seeks to re-absorb me back into the the nothingness of annihilation. When we reflect on ourselves and our existence we try to find meaning. We try to find reasons for being. We try to find the order in the chaos. We are not accidents. A simple precursory glance at a Bible could've told us that. But for many of our godless atheist friends that is not really an option, is it? They are way too intelligent to believe in a fairy tale. Sad. The scientific community has spend centuries trying to determine what the Bible could've told them in a few minutes of reading Genesis...and it has been telling humanity the same thing...for millennia.
So wise they became as fools.
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools...." ~Romans 1:21-22
Related Post: The Splendor of The Order
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