All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
"I really don't know how to describe it other than to say you have to see it to believe it... If you checked out a magical version of The Elements from the Hogwarts library, this would be it."
This was how Theodore Gray describes his application, The Elements: A Visual Exploration for the iPad. I had the opportunity to review the application over the weekend with some science-y friends of mine. All were in agreement: if books like this were around when we were in school, it would have been a lot more fun to learn the periodic table.
Then again, this is no book. The Elements is an iPad application based on Theodore Gray's beautiful hard cover book, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe. Containing similar information, the pictures and data come to live in the iPad application in a way they never could in a book.
After starting the application you are presented with the entire periodic table of the elements. Upon closer inspection, each element is a picture of something physical that is either the element itself or an idea that represents the element. While things like carbon are relatively easy to photograph, Einsteinium requires a little more photographic license. Each picture in the table is also moving, enticing you to touch it and learn more.
When you do, you're presented with a nice large picture of the element and a fantastic amount of information provided by WolframAlpha. This requires an active internet connection as the data is pulled off the internet. But while the amount of information available is deep, the interface to mining all this data is clean and understandable. It feels like something out of science fiction, yet there it is in my hands.
There is a button to press that advances the screen to a write up of the element and includes additional pictures, which represent how that element exists in everyday life. The pictures are gorgeous and perfectly shot. Each can be interacted with as well, allowing you to spin them around and examine them more closely. This helps visualize each element much more than a 2d picture ever could and adds a lot of magic to the app. Each image can also be viewed in 3d with a pair of 3d glasses, which run around 5$ from the publisher's site.
Additionally, the write-ups themselves are as much entertaining as they are informative. My hats off to Theodore for making exploring the elements a real joy.
The only complaints I heard were from a high-school physics and chemistry teacher. He was duly impressed with the application but frustrated by the lack of one feature in particular. The interface steps you through each element in detail by its atomic number, but does not allow you to move up or down within a group. For example, comparing the noble gases would be easy if you could navigate up and down group 18 without having to return to the application's home page each time.
But this is a minor complaint given the application's purpose: describing the stuff that makes up everything around us. Not only is it fascinating, seeing this information presented on the iPad particularly engages the reader in a way I was not prepared for. Fundamental science took on new meaning and I felt like a kid again discovering this stuff for the first time. Publishers should take note: this app makes learning science fun.
The Elements: A Visual Exploration for the iPad (iTunes) $13.99
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review.
More images from the application appear after the break.
All images screen-captured from The Elements: A Visual Exploration for the iPad.
