The Periodic Table of Videos

The Periodic Table of Videos is neat website put together by a group at the University of Nottingham. You can click on any element to watch a short video describing that element. Some are more interesting than others. I recommend watching the videos for the alkali metals which are the elements in the first column. This includes lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K), rubidium (Rb), cesium (Cs), and francium (Fr) but excludes hydrogen (H) (the video for hydrogen does have a cool explosion in it though). In each of these videos they show how violently the element reacts with water, with the reactions getting more violent as you move down the periodic table. This is because the element becomes more and more easy to oxidize (or remove an electron) as you move down the column. They could not get a sample for francium because it is radioactive but the video for francium has a montage of the reactions of each of the previous alkali metals with water. The montage is useful for comparison.