I'm on the lecture tour of Australia big
cities Sydney Adelaide Melbourne but now
I'm somewhere special a small town
called Bendigo not far from Melbourne
and the reason I've come here is because
of this building behind me the Bendigo
Discovery Center because I've heard
there's something really quite exciting
inside let's go in
so wow look at this but that's not why
we're here we're here because there's a
touring
exhibition about the periodic table
which started on the island of Tasmania
off the coast of Australia and here it
is this exhibit has been assembled for
the international year of chemistry you
can see I'm wearing the symbol of the
international year here and the ra I the
Royal Australian chemical Institute held
an auction of the elements people had to
bid money for I want cium or I want
francium or I want hydrogen and they use
that money to pay Tasmanian artists to
design a picture for that element these
artists then put their work together to
make this periodic table and over here
and it's nothing to do with the exhibits
is our periodic tables of video
QR code periodic table and we made a
video about that before so let's get
back to the business what they've done
is some of the things are really quite
obvious why they've chosen them if you
look up here at Florine they've got
teeth you remember that fluoride will
stop your teeth being attacked so easily
by the acid in your mouth there are
other ones which are really quite fun so
if we look up here to Gallum which was
discovered in
France and so Gallum is kind named after
the name Gaul for France but this one is
quite a pun because you it's got a
cockroll there and the person who
discovered it the scientist was called
Lok which means a cockrel in French and
also Gallum or gallus in Latin means a
cockrel so this one has quite a subtle
pun though I'm not quite sure why it's
got a radioactive symbol there perhaps
it's just a ventilator so that the cockr
doesn't suffocate so over here we have M
narium which was named after Lisa mner
who discovered the explanation of
nuclear
fishing but um I think she looks a bit
like Mary Poppins here we have to take
ium which I think looks rather nice it
has a
turbine from a jet engine from an
airlane because the turbine blades are
often made of titanium I quite like
aluminium you can see it has ring poool
um drinks
cans which is quite a practical illusion
though perhaps drinks cans are not
something we should be terribly proud of
they're very wasteful
so there's really quite a coincidence
about us being in Bendigo because this
town Bendigo was actually named after a
boxer a prize fighter one that fought
without gloves called Bendigo who came
from Nottingham the city where my
university is so of all the places in
Australia this is one of the very few
that has a direct connection with
Nottingham and here we are and we come
and we find not only the exhibition of
the periodic table but even the periodic
table from Nottingham as well so it's
really quite a coincidence There Is
strontium which is formed strontium 90s
formed in nuclear explosions and I think
here there is a representation of the
devastation probably of Hiroshima after
the nuclear explosion I think this
period periodic table is really quite
fun it doesn't have any information on
it at all except the atomic number and
the name of the element but what it does
have is a picture which makes you think
why on Earth has the artist chosen this
or that and there's some booklets down
the side which can tell people about
what the artist was
thinking but from our point of view it's
cheating to look at this because spoils
the fun you've got to try and guess what
is your one
favorite
um I think it really has to be hassum
because I really since we started doing
these periodic videos I've fallen in
love with hassum I have absolutely no
idea what this picture is but there was
a dinner held or lunch party held in
Sydney when I was there and each of the
tables
was named after one of the elements the
dinner was organized by the raci so they
actually used these pictures and I took
a photograph of the table called hassium
my table was a bit boring I was on
Silicon up here and it looks okay but it
was nothing very exciting and my next
door neighbor took it the label down
because she couldn't see the person
sitting opposite her there's one more
thing that's really exciting there's a
chemistry teacher from a large Secondary
School in Melbourne who's driven all the
way nearly 2 hours to meet us in
Bendigo and Kate is not only an
excellent and enthusiastic chemistry
teacher but there's a picture of her
class just in front of my desk which she
sent in as one of the pictures for our
viewers when Brady was making a film
about it and she also brought me a
really nice card from all the children
in her class so I'd like to say to them
thank you for the card and to wish all
the children studying chemistry in
Australia great success and I hope a lot
of you will be able to see this periodic
table as it travels around the country
and come on Kate which one's your
favorite my favorite is carbon um I like
it because oh thank you
I like carbon because it's got pictures
of the gum nuts