Nuclear Lattice Model and the Electronic Configuration of the Chemical Elements

Abstract

In the earliest days of science researchers were arguing philosophically what might be the reasonable explanation for an observed phenomenon. The majority of the contemporary scientific community claims that these arguments are useless because they do not add anything to our understanding of nature. The current consensus on the aim of science is that science collects facts (data) and discerns the order that exists between and among the various facts (e.g., Feynman 1985). According to this approach the mission of science is over when the phenomenon under investigation has been described. It is left to the philosophers to answer the question what is the governing physical process behind the observed physical phenomenon. Quantum mechanics is a good example of this approach, “It works, so we just have to accept it.” The consequence is that nearly 90 years after the development of quantum theory, there is still no consensus in the scientific community regarding the interpretation of the theory’s foundational building blocks (Schlosshauer et al. 2013). I believe that identifying the physical process governing a natural phenomenon is the responsibility of science. Dutailly (2013) expressed this quite well: A “black box” in the “cloud” which answers our questions correctly is not a scientific theory, if we have no knowledge of the basis upon which it has been designed. A scientific theory should provide a set of concepts and a formalism which can be easily and indisputably understood and used by the workers in the field. In this study the main unifying principle in chemistry, the periodic system of the chemical elements (PSCE) is investigated. The aim of the study is not only the description of the periodicity but also the understanding of the underlying physics resulting in the PSCE. By 1860 about 60 elements had been identified, and this initiated a quest to find their systematic arrangement. Based on similarities, Dobereiner (1829) in Germany suggested grouping the elements into triads.