N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand
Been doing a lot of high end associative thinking lately about the way different STEM disciplines fit together. This morning I was thinking about music theory in relation to math in relation to chemistry (harmonics connects music to physics to chemistry since matter is vibrating) and it occurred to me that there should be a way to view the periodic table of elements in relation to the Fibonacci numbers.... Kind of relating back to the good old "rabbit problem" and ways to stack together recurring quantized shapes like particles. And sure enough after some googling -- there is! Tickled with myself that I was able to predict it. This is all the reading I've done on it so far but there's a very deep rabbit hole to go down here! Thought some of you guys may be interested.
What is the relationship between the Fibonacci sequence and the periodic table?
Answer: Excellent question! I’m glad someone asked this here, as it’s a glaring example of the fact that all that happens in nature, is really only “symmetry-forming and breaking,” as some folks like to put it. If I may confess, even I was impressed by this theory at first, but soon realised tha...chemistry1.quora.com
The article doesn't go into it, but part of what's going on is that the elements that fall "in between" the Fibonacci numbers tend to be more reactive, I believe, based on the number of electrons in their outer valence shell as one of the main trends. Which is part of why carbon, with it's four outermost electrons (half the full shell) is able to form the backbone of so much organic chemistry.
Recently had a couple DOC trips for the first time in over 8 years (have barely touched psychedelics since before my cancer) and it's got my brain firing on all gears! Spiral out my swirly friends!
Edit -- you know, "reactive" isn't necessarily the right term for it in general... More reactive as far as covalent bonding is concerned is perhaps a better way to look at the ones that fall in series with Carbon (that trend just on the organic side of the semimetal line). The ones that are further away from that series to be more ionically reactive, out to the point where they suddenly become nonreactive (noble gas series).
Images to go along with it for anyone that doesn't want to click the link. The visuals definitely help.
Notice how new groups in the standard periodic table tend to recur in a similar pattern as how the new color pairs recur in the classic depiction of the Fibonacci rabbit problem
A couple more good visualizations to go along with this, and some more comments that I lazily copied and pasted from IMing with ebola? (Oh btw ebola is doing well if anyone has wondered over time lol, not sure how often he shows up here)
For some reason Cesium breaks the general trend there of families and the rabbit problem tho, at 55. Perhaps it's technically a start of some new undescribed series.
The halogen series starts on a magic number I believe because it falls on either side of a Fibonacci number in two ways.... Atomic number 9 and 7 valence electrons in the second shell. 3, 6, and 9 as magic numbers also being important for periodicity in general. A symmetrical series as opposed to the symmetry breaking series described in general by Fibonacci style sequences (the Lucas numbers also relate but I have yet to read much about that rabbit hole. The Quora answer linked explains it better tho about how the periodic table is a series of forming and breaking symmetries)
Some combination of the following period table and the first periodic table make it easier to visualize what I was saying about how new periodic families tend to occur along with the new color series in the original Fibonacci rabbit image, with regards to trending towards and away from organicness outward to increasing electronegativity before becoming nonreactive at the noble gases (above spiral depicts that better too I suppose now that I type that)
