Periodic Table of Awesomeness

In my department there is a huge number of seminars to attend. As students we are generally required to attend the departmental colloquium, which is typically an outside, invited speaker, and the student seminar series of our division. In the analytical division, students usually give two seminars, a mostly literature-based seminar in their 2nd year, and then a research-based final seminar shortly before graduating.

At analytical division seminars it is customary for the speaker (or friends of the speaker) to provide snacks. A few weeks ago my labmate Slim gave his 2nd year seminar, and E and I jumped on the excuse to bake. Because we're dorks and ridiculous, we decided to make a periodic table of cupcakes for Slim's seminar. Here's the finished product laid out on my dining room table the night before:


Before the event, there was some curiosity and discussion as to which elements would be snatched up right away, and which would be left until the end. To satisfy inquisitive minds, I collected a few data points throughout the cupcake selection process. Here are the numbers extracted from the raw data (Periodically taken photographs, and I apologize for the mediocre quality of the images - it seems I can't make tables in blogger. I can't imagine why not.):


First, a few points about how the data and elements have been organized. (By the way, here's the periodic table we used for reference.)

• For the d- and f-blocks, the first number is the number of elemental cupcakes, while the number in parenthesis is total number of cupcakes in that flavor, i.e. including the 2 place-holder asterisk cupcakes indicating where the f-block inserts into the table.
• While La and Ac are more d-block-like in their electronics, they were included in the f-block seeing as the elements in the f-block are collectively named for them (lanthanides and actinides).
• Lu and Lr were included with the d-block because electronically they are more d-block-like.
  
• Including the unnamed, somewhat suspect elements at the bottom of the periodic table, there are currently 118 elements.
• The skinny, blank row in the table indicates when the seminar actually occurred - in other words, the division between cupcakes that were selected before seminar and those taken afterward.

Given that each block was a different flavor cake and frosting, the contributions from elemental preference and flavor preference are convoluted, making it difficult (ok, impossible) to draw any solid conclusions. Also, as one of my committee members pointed out, this experiment would have to be repeated to have any validity (I think that was a hint for more cupcakes...).

Sorted by flavor/block, the earliest cupcakes/elements selected:

Chocolate jumped out to the early lead, with 10 cupcakes, or 23% being taken early. It's not surprising that precious metals (Ag, Au, Pd) were selected early. Tungsten's (W) popularity is also not surprising, as it is an odd, but widely used metal. Toxic metals also seemed to be quite popular for the novelty of eating a "toxic" cupcake (Cd, Hg).

Seaborgium (Sg), and some other elements, might seem like an odd early-round selection, but I believe this to be due to the remarkable popularity of Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg among those in attendance. Seaborg won the 1951 Nobel prize in chemistry, and is the principal or co-discoverer of ten elements, including seaborgium (actually the last element to be named for a still-living person/discoverer), plutonium (Pu), americium (Am), curium (Cm), berkelium (Bk), californium (Cf), einsteinium (Es, also named for a still-living person), fermium (Fm), medelevium (Md), and nobelium (No).

As elemental/cupcake selection was a highly individual process, some observations on various subjects' methods:

• Many seemed to choose which flavor they wanted, and then select an element within that flavor block.
• The male post-doc who selected carbon works with carbon specifically.
• One female, 5th year graduate student, selected lithium, in case the seminar drove her crazy (2nd year seminars are frequently quite boring).
• One male, 2nd year graduate student selected seaborgium due to the previously discussed appreciation for (cough cough obsession with) Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
• One female faculty member selected a gingerbread cupcake (element not recorded) due to a recently upset stomach and the wishful thinking that a cupcake containing ginger would be more agreeable to her stomach.
  

Having considered which cupcakes/elements were selected early, now let us consider the cupcakes/elements which were not selected. Again, sorted by flavor/block, the cupcakes/elements left to languish (until the next day anyways):

Ultimately 100% of the red velvet cupcakes were consumed, however no firm conclusions can be made as to the popularity of the cupcake flavor or s-block elements as there are the fewest s-block elements. Ultimately the f-block, or gingerbread cupcakes had the highest percentage leftover (33%).

Some of the unselected p-block elements seem surprising (He, S, Ar, Po in particular), and I suspect a higher percentage of p-block elements would have been selected had they been a more "exotic" flavor rather than vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. The popularity of chocolate cupcakes was expected, however some of the specific elements left behind were surprising (Sc, Ti, Y, Os, and Ir in particular).

Despite the complete lack of justifiable conclusions, we're going to call the periodic table of cupcakes a success. :)