Antimony

I am sitting at my desk, still wearing what I slept in, downloading apps on my phone. Maybe when you’re downloading things like the periodic table to your phone you know the day isn’t likely to be overly productive.

I can’t honestly say I’ve needed to look up the symbol for manganese recently. Besides, I already know it, because Mrs. Keyser made us memorize the periodic chart in 9th grade chemistry. Or was that 10th grade? or 11th? Whenever it was, I still remember that Mn is the symbol for manganese. I doubt I’ll need to know that today, or tomorrow, but I like knowing it.

Of course, it’s easy to remember things like manganese and magnesium (Mg), but what about antimony (Sb) and argon (Ar)? Right? One might need to know those at a moment’s notice. And with just somewhere between three and 47 clicks I can find that out now.

Truth be told, I didn’t even remember antimony until I looked at the periodic table. Shouldn’t we all know the elements? Of course we should. That’s why Mrs. Keyser had us learn them. And that’s why I need to have the periodic table on my phone to refresh my memory..