http://www.physorg.com/news5816.html
"The original periodic table, on which the rectangular design most people studied at school is based, was devised by the Russian chemistry professor Dimitri Mendeléev in 1869. Listing the elements according to increasing atomic weight, Mendeléev found that when arranged into horizontal rows, elements with similar properties appeared at regular intervals in the vertical columns. There have been numerous renditions of the table since, but most have stuck to the classic rectangular format. In his spare time Philip Stewart, a University Lecturer in Plant Science, set about creating a design that would both represent the continuityof the sequence of elements and be visually exciting. Inspired by a mural of the periodic table created by the artist Edgar Longman for the South Kensington Science Exhibition, part of the Festival of Britain held in 1951, Mr Stewart created an image in which the elements are set against a galaxy of stars. Instead of figuring in adjacent boxes, each element is represented by a colour-coded circle and all are connected in a spiral, at the centre of which is the neutron." <more>
