ABC #397

COVERSTORY
FOTON FUEL CELL
Algebra should be
learned because ‘you
never know when
you’ll need to use it
in life’, many of us
at school were told. Trigonometric
functions and old mate Pythagoras’s
Theorem were also classic
mathematical mind-benders for
the youthful academic masses, too.
Yet, fortunately, only few of us would
ever indeed actually use these in
our ensuing 50-year-odd workforce
stint, with the rest resolving heartwarmingly
that the advice from their
well-intentioned teachers back then
was pure myth.
The Periodic Table of Elements,
though? Well, that’s another scholastic
kettle of proverbial God’s aquatic
creatures.
When in full living colour that
‘completed Tetris’-looking thing
arguably comes in handy more times
than most non-geeky science types
might guess it would – and thankfully
they are probably all the better for it.
With origins dating to more than
230 years ago and celebrating its
official 150th anniversary in 2019, the
evolving scientific ‘work in progress’ by
a slew of disturbingly erudite people
cleverly lists all discovered chemical
elements thus far known to mankind.
And it does so in a somewhat
easy-to-follow order for lowly mere
34
ABC September 2020 busnews.com.au