Timeline of chemical element discoveries
List of history of chemical elements
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- 5 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Atomic number
Each element's name, atomic number, year of first report, name of the discoverer, and notes related to the discovery are listed.
Periodic table of elements
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Graphical timeline
Cumulative diagram
Pre-modern and early modern discoveries
Modern discoveries
For 18th-century discoveries, around the time that Antoine Lavoisier first questioned the phlogiston theory, the recognition of a new "earth" has been regarded as being equivalent to the discovery of a new element (as was the general practice then). For some elements (e.g. Be, B, Na, Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Mn, Co, Ni, Zr, Mo), this presents further difficulties as their compounded forms were widely known since medieval or even ancient times, even though the elements as "elemental" constituents of those compounds were not. Since the true nature of those compounds was sometimes only gradually discovered, it is sometimes very difficult to name one specific discoverer. In such cases the first publication on their chemistry is noted, and a longer explanation given in the notes.