How to play
- Press Start. You have 12 minutes.
- Type the name of an element. It counts as soon as it matches, with no need to press Enter: its cell fills in with the atomic number, symbol and name, and it joins the list below the table.
- Names only: symbols don’t count. Capitals, spaces and accents don’t matter, but the spelling does. Both British and American spellings are accepted.
- Pause whenever you like. The table and the list are hidden while the clock is stopped. If you close or reload the page mid-game, the game is saved and waits, paused, until you come back.
- When the time is up, the elements you missed fill in red and the ones you named take the color of their category. Tap or hover over any cell to see its element.
Spelling and symbols
Type names, not symbols: an element’s one- or two-letter symbol doesn’t name it, even when you know it. Capitals, spaces and accents don’t matter, but the spelling does.
Names follow the spelling of IUPAC, the international body that names the elements. Three elements are also spelled differently in American or older British English, and both spellings count.
Show the accepted spellings (gives three answers away)
| Z | IUPAC name | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | Aluminium | Aluminum |
| 16 | Sulfur | Sulphur |
| 55 | Caesium | Cesium |
Latin names, which some symbols come from, don’t count. Neither do the temporary names that the heaviest elements had before they were officially named.
About the table
The quiz uses the 18-column table printed in most classrooms. The 15 elements from 57 to 71, the lanthanides, and the 15 from 89 to 103, the actinides, sit in two rows below the main table, and group 3 shows their ranges in periods 6 and 7. Chemists still debate which elements belong in group 3. This layout leaves that open, and it doesn’t change the answers.
After a game, the elements you named take the color of their category: alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, transition metals, post-transition metals, metalloids, reactive nonmetals, noble gases, lanthanides and actinides. Categories follow PubChem, with halogens and other nonmetals counted together as reactive nonmetals. From element 109 on, too few atoms have ever been made to test their chemistry, so those elements are marked as having unknown properties.
Questions
How many elements are there?
118, all of them confirmed and named. The heaviest, element 118, was confirmed at the end of 2015. No heavier element has been made yet; one would start an eighth row in the table.
Which elements were named most recently?
Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118. Their discoveries were confirmed at the end of 2015, and IUPAC approved their names on 28 November 2016. Until then they were known by temporary names built from their atomic numbers.
Show their names (gives four answers away)
| Z | Symbol | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 113 | Nh | Nihonium |
| 115 | Mc | Moscovium |
| 117 | Ts | Tennessine |
| 118 | Og | Oganesson |
Does the clock stop if I switch tabs?
No, use Pause for that. If you close or reload the page mid-game, the game is saved and waits, paused, until you come back.
Where are my scores kept?
Only in this browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, and clearing your browser’s site data removes them.
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