The Elements (song)
From Freepedia
"The Elements" (1959) is a song by Tom Lehrer that recites the names of all the chemical elements that were known at the time of writing, up to number 102, nobelium. It can be found on his albums More Songs by Tom Lehrer and the live album An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer. The song is sung to the tune of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Major General's Song" ("I am the very model of a modern major-general...") from The Pirates of Penzance. Here are the opening and closing lines:
- ....
- These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
- And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered.
Indeed, since that time, 14 more have been discovered (or synthesized, technically), and 9 of those have been named. Those 9 are lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium, bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, and roentgenium.
As a note, the final rhyme of "Harvard" and "discovered" is delivered in an exaggerated parody of a Boston accent.
Periodic Table according to Lehrer
This might help you to learn the order of the elements in the song. however, it might not help with memorising the elements in the real periodic table.
| Group → | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period ↓ | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | 5 H | 51 He | ||||||||||||||||||
| 2 | 47 Li | 48 Be | 37 B | 97 C | *7* N | 6 O | 56 F | 91 Ne | ||||||||||||
| 3 | 102 Na | 61 Mg | 3 Al | 42 Si | 54 P | 82 S | 96 Cl | 89 Ar | ||||||||||||
| 4 | 72 K | 79 Ca | 63 Sc | 76 Ti | 20 V | 80 Cr | 58 Mn | 13 Fe | 98 Co | 9 Ni | 99 Cu | 94 Zn | 28 Ga | 12 Ge | 2 As | 4 Se | 46 Br | 90 Kr | ||
| 5 | 36 Rb | 41 Sr | 33 Y | 18 Zr | 39 Nb | 60 Mo | 75 Tc | 15 Ru | 95 Rh | 70 Pd | 43 Ag | 78 Cd | 27 In | 101 Sn | 1 Sb | 77 Te | 29 I | 93 Xe | ||
| 6 | 65 Cs | 49 Ba | * | 52 Hf | 74 Ta | 100 W | 8 Re | 22 Os | 40 Ir | 68 Pt | 25 Au |
59 Hg | 32 Tl | 66 Pb | 45 Bi | 73 Po | 23 At | 92 Rn | ||
| 7 | 55 Fr | 24 Ra | ** | ?? Rf | ?? Db | ?? Sg | ?? Bh | ?? Hs | ?? Mt | ?? Ds | ?? Rg | ?? Uub | ?? Uut | ?? Uuq | ?? Uup | ?? Uuh | ?? Uus | ?? Uuo | ||
| * Lanthanides | 21 La | 64 Ce | 67 Pr | 10 Nd | 71 Pm | 44 Sm | 17 Eu | 38 Gd | 57 Tb | 62 Dy | 50 Ho | 68 Er | 31 Tm | 34 Yb | 19 Lu | |||||
| ** Actinides | 35 Ac | 30 Th | 26 Pa | 16 U | 11 Np | 69 Pu | 14 Am | 81 Cm | 85 Bk | 83 Cf | 87 Es | 84 Fm | 86 Md | 88 No | ?? Lr | |||||
| Alkali metals | Alkaline earth metals | Lanthanides | Actinides | Transition metals |
| Poor metals | Metalloids | Nonmetals | Halogens | Noble gases |
Note: Nitrogen is the only element whose Lehrer atomic number is identical to the commonly accepted values.



