The Periodic Table (Levi, Primo)

Contiguous spaces of remembrance in identity writing: chemistry, fiction and the autobiographic question in Primo Levi's The Periodic Table

In this paper the author draws on Primo Levi's problematic use of biographic narrative techniques by means of asystematic and symbolic co ordination of a selection of 21 inorganic elements pertaining to Mendeleyev's peliodic table. By exploring the mechanisms of remembrance and trauma in conjunction with chemistry and the necessities of testimony, the author argues that Primo Levi's collection ...

The Periodic Electronegativity Table

The origins and development of the electronegativity concept as an empirical construct are briefly examined, emphasizing the confusion that exists over the appropriate units in which to express this quantity. It is shown how to relate the most reliable of the empirical scales to the theoretical definition of electronegativity in terms of the quantum potential and ionization radius of the atomic...

Martina MENGONI, The gray zone: Power and privilege in Primo Levi

French) Primo Levi est universellement connu pour Si c’est un homme (1947), où il raconte son expérience dans le camp d’Auschwitz. Quarante ans après, en 1986, il publie Les naufragés et les rescapés, où il se pose de nouvelles questions concernant le camp, contre les risques de simplification et d’oubli. Ce livre est lié au concept de zone grise, un terme que Levi lui-même a forgé et qui est e...

Cracks in the periodic table.

From the Mendeleev periodic table to particle physics and back to the periodic table

We briefly describe in this paper the passage from Mendeleev’s chemistry (1869) to atomic physics (in the 1900’s), nuclear physics (in the 1932’s) and particle physics (from 1953 to 2006). We show how the consideration of symmetries, largely used in physics since the end of the 1920’s, gave rise to a new format of the periodic table in the 1970’s. More specifically, this paper is concerned with...