Tutorial

In this tutorial, you will use the Graphing and Sorting Applet to answer the following questions about the elements.

Which elements cost less than $10 per 100 g in their pure form? What element has the highest price?

Open Periodic Table Live! and click the Charts… button at the bottom of any element’s page to open the Graphing and Sorting Applet. There are several ways to answer these questions using the Graphing and Sorting Applet. One example is provided using the TABLE window and another using the GRAPH window. You may wish to verify that both methods give the same answers.

Using the TABLE Window
To use the TABLE window, click the menu TABLE FIELDS. In the list that drops down, click OTHER then Pure Cost. The price of 100g of each element in its pure state appears in a new column in the table. Click the Pure Cost ($/100g) column heading to sort the elements from lowest to highest price. Read from the top of the table the symbols of the elements that have a price less than $10/100 g. To locate the most expensive element, either scroll down the list to find the element with the highest price listed, or click the Pure Cost ($/100g) column heading again to sort the elements from highest to lowest price.

There are a number of elements for which no price data is available. These are listed in the table with NO DATA in the Pure Cost ($/100g) column. They can be ignored in answering this question. You can go to the page in Periodic Table Live! for each for these elements to see if you can figure out why price data is not available (Hint: one reason for no price is if the element is not sold in the pure state or is never sold at all).

Using the GRAPH Window
To use the GRAPH window, click the Y menu. In the list that drops down, click OTHER then Pure Cost. You can select any property from the X menu or use the default, Atomic Number. To find the most expensive element, point the mouse at the highest data point on the plot. The element symbol and data values for the point appear in a pop-up label.

To locate elements with prices under $10, click the OPTIONS menu, then click SHOW MIN/MAX DATA VALUES . The Graph Data Bounds toolbar opens. Leave the X min and X max values unchanged. Type the following into the Y min and Y max text boxes:

Y min: 0

Y max: 10

Click the graph button () to apply these conditions to the graph. The values displayed in Graph Data Bounds toolbar will be adjusted to the actual data values displayed in the graph. Verify that the Y max value is now less than 10. Identify the elements by one of three methods:

1. Point the mouse at each data each point on the graph and read the pop–up label.
2. Look at the PERIODIC TABLE window. Only those elements with a price of less than $10 are selected.
3. If you have not unlinked the windows (by selecting UNLINK GRAPH AND TABLE DATA from the OPTIONS menu), only those elements with a price less than $10 are listed in the TABLE window.