[jdurg]

Hi Everyone.  I just wanted to let everybody know that my Periodic Table photo has been updated with a much better overall look to everything.  I re-photographed all of my elements except for Hydrogen, Chlorine, and the Noble Gases.  All other elements have a brand new picture with a much better color balance and a consistent look throughout the table.  Some elements aren't as detailed as they were before, but as a whole the entire thing looks incredible.  I hope you like it and feel free to leave any feedback that comes to mind.  (BTW, I also believe that the file size has dropped a bit as well, so this should make everyone happier).  

[martin17]

I really like the pictures; they are quite good, especially for things that are not commonly seen.  A few comments.  Lead is from Old English lead (with long e) akin to Old Frisian lad (c long a), OHG lot, New High German Lot 'solder'; these nouns are all as far as anyone can tell and point to Proto-Germanic *laudan 'low melting metal'.  This term is related to Proto-Celtic *loudon 'low melting metal' which is assumed on the basis of Middle Irish luaide which supports a derivative *loud-ia of the assumed *loud-on.  The Celtic for 'red' is *roudo- (Old Irish ruad; related ot OE read OHG rot ... and is completely unrelated to these words for 'solder' though the words rime.  I would guess your source,  whatever it is made a wild (and wrong) guess about that and sought an explanation based on minim the red lead oxide used as a pigment, but the forms are accounted for in a very different manner by etymologists.  Because p is lost in Celtic (pater > OIr. athair; the Uer- of Vercingetorix is uper- [Gk. hyper- 'super']) it is reasonable to imagine that PCt. *loudon is from earlier **ploudon; this could be Proto-Indo-European *plou-dhom ie the root plou- 'flow' meaning the 'flowing, ie low melting metal'; the same reconstruction would give Latin *plubum; a common and simple change of *oudh to *ondh would result in plumbum 'solder, lead'; thus the Latin and Celtic are probably reflexes of the same original form meaning something like 'flowing metal'.  The Celtic possession of the Erzgebirge 'the Ore Mountains in SE Germany/Czech would account for the Celtic term's being loaned into Germanic.  

Lat. aurum simply means 'gold' and is akin to Sabine ausom recorded by early Roman authors.  There is speculation that the root *aus- is akin to that in *aus-os 'dawn' which similarly becomes Lat. aurora, but that is not known becaude the words are so isolated.  Old Lithuanian ausas appears to be the same, but the accent of that word suggests a mising consonant after the u, something like *auXs-;  in the case of aurora, a relationship to Skt. ushas is clear and the PIE mus have been *Aus-os- (where A is not the vowel a but a consonant the becomes a under very complex conditions -- this is Saussure's Laryngeal Theory and the X would also be a laryngeal).  If that guess is right, then the relation to 'dawn' would vanish, but the relationship to Tocharian A wa"s, TB yasa would be clearer supposing *AuEeso-, and thus pointing to 'Au' as one of three original PIE metals.

[jdurg]

Thank you for the kind remarks.  I'm floored by the name origins you have provided.  Those are very good and I will certainly update the periodic table with them and be sure to credit you.  Thank you so much.  I'm guessing that you have a background in entymology?  That also reminds me that I really need to add the source of those name origins to the table.  Once Mitch is done with his updates I will include that in there.  

The origins of the latin names for elements has always been a bit hazy, as these names were derived quite a long time ago.  For the elements known to man since the beginning, it becomes even more tricky.  (Unlike hydrargyrum for Mercury which is nice and simple.  )  With gold I too have hear numerous reasons behind its name of 'Aurum'.  The one that I heard most frequently was that 'aurum' roughly meant 'Yellow Dawn' or 'Shining Dawn', so that is why it is recorded as such.    Still thank you so much for that information.  The origins of the elements' names has always been interesting to me.  I'm also glad that you like the photos.  I got a new digital camera this past Christmas and took sime time to get used to it.  You should really see the photos printed out in high resolution on glossy photo paper and arranged in the form of a periodic table like I have in my cubicle at work.  You have to increase the brightness of the photos a little bit to make them look proper, but it's incredibly neat.  I'm constantly having people stop by my cubicle and just admire it.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to update my Ir picture to a lump that is about 35 grams, and I'll possibly be adding a photograph of pure Uranium.