Allotropy Allotropes As for why he does the things he does Commentary

Jöns Jacob Berzelius chemistry

Allotropy

• Chemists distinguished elements by their weights
• but the chemistries of some continued to be squirrelly.
• Knowing nothing at the time about
• polyatomic molecules or crystal structures,
• Friedrich Wöhler and his friend Berzelius had proposed
• that chemical compounds could have different isomers,
• but they believed that pure elements were inherently monoatomic.
• When it was discovered that different derivations
• of a pure element could have different chemical behaviors,
• Berzelius coined the term meaning other behavoir
• to describe the inherent variations of an element.

Allotropes

• Carbon and sulfur have the most known allotropes.
• Gold and the noble gases have none.
• Only elements in groups 13 through 16
• of the periodic table have natural allotropes.
• In group 13 only boron.
• In group 14 carbon and tin.
• (Germanium’s allotrope germanene doesn’t exist in nature).
• In group 15, phosphorus, and arsenic.
• (Explosive antimony can be made in the lab).
• In group 16, oxygen, sulfur, and selenium.
• At extremely low temperatures, diatomic hydrogen,
• and under extreme pressure maybe metallic hydrogen.

As for why he does the things he does

• We say he’s crazy, cuckoo, cockeyed, mad,
• a few cards short of a full deck,
• demented, deranged, disturbed, daft, daffy, dippy, dotty, potty,
• a nutcase, a weirdo, unbalanced, unhinged,
• loco, loony, barmy, loopy, whacky, screwy, addlebrained,
• bonkers, bananas, fruity, batty, buggy, and off his trolley,
• but as for why he does the things he does,
• God only knows.