Fun for a Weekday: Wordplay with the Periodic Table

article posted in thermoscientific AnalyteGuru™ Blog by Dr. Simon Nelms

Constructing words from Periodic Table symbols would appear to be quite a popular exercise (see the links below) and it generates some interesting results. For example, if you take the liberty of including the symbols D (for deuterium) and T (for tritium), did you know that there are (at least) two words that can be constructed that contain twenty three letters (INTERSUBSTITUTABILITIES, meaning the ability of people or objects to be substituted between different e.g. locations) and NONREPRESENTATIONALISMS, meaning practices of art that are not based on representational (i.e. based on a real item or person) art, apparently. And who would have known that the longest word you can construct using just single letter element symbols is the seventeen-letter PHOTOCONDUCTIVITY? For the record, the longest word that can be made using the two letter symbols is IRREPRESSIBILITIES (18 letters).

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