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On Sat, 26 Sep 1998 03:26:51 -0700, Paul Hsieh wrote about Re: Time Magazine: Man of the Millennium:
>juola at mathcs.duq.edu says...
> > Peter da Silva <peter at baileynm.com> wrote:
[snip]
>> > [...] Give credit to the guy that
> > invented the periodic table and discovered the holes for her
> > to fill....
>> You want to give credit for someone discoverying a "classification
> system"? Sheesh ... !
>
Gesundheit.
The effects of the periodic table were somewhat accidental, but they
were profound. Most of what we would come to know about atomic
structure, and -why- elements react to each other the way they do,
came from trying to make sense of -why- the patterns in the
periodic table occur the way they do.
I think most of relatively modern science, and our modern ability
to precisely control chemical reactions, traces back to the
discovery of the periodic table as their root.
--
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Joe Cosby
Devout member of the Church of Amiga since 1990
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it" - Goethe
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