Ok, so I'm a nerd, I accept that, actually, its a compliment rather than an insult.
I love art, particularly real life photography, thats the kind of art I like to hang - but this giant periodic table is the best piece of art I have. It is so huge it covers half of my study wall.
Why do I find it so fascinating, well if you REALLY don't know, I will tell you.
'The periodic table is basically the universal catalog of everything you can drop. There are some things such as light, love, logic and time that are not in the periodic table, but, these things you cannot drop either!
The Earth - your PC - everything tangible is made of elements. We are mainly made of oxygen with quite a bit of carbon jointing us, giving structure to the organic molecules that define you as an example of carbon-based life..... if you are not carbon based life, then greetings from the human species, nano nano....
Oxygen is a clear colourless gas, yet it makes up three-fifths of the weight of your body. How can that be? Elements have two faces, no they don't talk about you behind your back, they come in their pure state, and a range of chemical compounds they form when they combine with other elements. Oxygen is a pure gas right, but when it reacts with silicon, they become together the strong silicate minerals which compose the majority of the earths crust such as Quartz, Feldspars and Micas.
When oxygen combines with with hydrogen and carbon, the result can be anything from water to carbon monoxide to sugar. Oxygen atoms are still present in these compounds, no matter how unlike pure oxygen the substance may appear, and oxygen atoms can always be extracted back out and returned to pure gaseous form.
But (short of nuclear disintegration) each oxygen atom can never itself be broken down or taken apart into something simpler. This property of indivisibility is what makes an element an element.
Theodore Grey, Poster
The periodic table outlines every single element that is known to man, 94 naturally occurring and the rest man made. Everything that makes up the entire Universe comprises of these elements, especially Hydrogen.
This poster is like a bible as well as a piece of artwork - the information it tells you is basically explaining everything about everything.
"There is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements" Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 50 BC
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