--- title: Elements and the famous members of the periodic table — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Elements and the famous members of the periodic table», a lesson of the chemistry course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An element is a substance made of only one kind of atom: gold is only gold atoms, oxygen only oxygen atoms. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Chemistry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/) / Elements and the famous members of the… # Elements and the famous members of the periodic table Lesson 2 of the chemistry course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/0/) — An element is a substance made of only one kind of atom: gold is only gold atoms, oxygen only oxygen atoms. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/1/) — The big chart of coloured squares on the science-classroom wall is the periodic table, and every square is one element. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/2/) — Scientists put the elements in order of how many protons their atoms have, and elements that behave alike end up in the same column, like families. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/3/) — Everything you know, from a gold ring to a fizzy-drink can to the air you breathe, is made of elements alone or joined together. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/4/) — Think of the elements as the letters of an alphabet: about a hundred letters spell out every substance in the world. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/5/) — There are 118 known elements; about 90 are found in nature and the rest were made in laboratories, some lasting less than a second. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/6/) — Sodium is a soft metal that fizzes wildly in water and chlorine is a poisonous gas, but joined together they make a new, safe substance: ordinary table salt. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/7/) — Elements in the periodic table are in order of the number of protons in their atoms. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/8/) — Gold hardly reacts with air or water, so gold from ancient Egyptian tombs still shines while iron from the same time has rusted away. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/9/) — Only about one fifth of the air is oxygen; most of the rest is nitrogen, which we breathe in and out unchanged. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/11/) — Diamond and pencil graphite are both pure carbon; the atoms are arranged differently, a strong 3-D cage in diamond and sliding flat sheets in graphite; coal is mostly carbon too, so in a very hot fire a diamond can burn like coal. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/12/) — Helium is lighter than air, so helium balloons float; it was first found in the Sun's light, and its name comes from the Greek for "Sun". - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/13/) — Breathing helium from a gas tank is dangerous: it can harm the lungs and leaves the body without oxygen. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/14/) — Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature; it is poisonous, so a broken mercury thermometer is a job for a grown-up; in very hard frost, below about minus 39 degrees, it freezes into a solid metal. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/15/) — Most drink cans are aluminium, a light metal protected by a thin invisible layer that stops it wearing away. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/16/) — Long ago aluminium was so hard to get out of rock that it was more precious than gold. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/17/) — Neon gas glows orange-red when electricity passes through it; each element glows with its own colours. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/18/) — Iron in red blood cells helps carry oxygen around the body; meat, beans and lentils are good sources, and spinach is not as iron-rich as the old story says. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/2-elements-and-the-periodic-table/19/) — Each element has a short symbol: Na for sodium, Cl for chlorine, Fe for iron, Au for gold; some come from old Latin names, like Fe from ferrum, the Latin word for iron. - ← previous: [What is everything made of?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/1-what-is-everything-made-of/) - next →: [Molecules: when atoms join up](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/3-molecules-when-atoms-join-up/) - ↑ back to [Chemistry](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chemistry/)