Random Element Generator

The Random Element Generator picks one of the 118 elements on the periodic table and shows a card with its key data: symbol, atomic number, atomic mass, electron configuration, electronegativity, atomic radius, ionization energy, electron affinity, common oxidation states, standard state at room temperature, melting and boiling points, density, group block and the year it was discovered. Everything from hydrogen to oganesson is in the pool, with equal odds for each, so you're as likely to get a lab curiosity like protactinium as you are to get carbon.

How it works

There's one button and no settings. Each press returns one element; press again for another. The same element can come up twice in a row, since every draw is independent. There's no way to limit the pick to, say, metals or the first 20 elements, so if you need that for a quiz, keep clicking and skip the ones you don't want.

What's on the element card

The data comes from a standard periodic table dataset (the same fields PubChem publishes), one row per element. On each card you'll see:

• Identity: name, symbol, atomic number, atomic mass, and the CPK color chemists use in molecular models.
• Electron structure: electron configuration (for example [Ar] 3d10 4s2 4p3 for arsenic), electronegativity on the Pauling scale, atomic radius in picometers, first ionization energy and electron affinity in electronvolts, and typical oxidation states.
• Physical properties: standard state (solid, liquid or gas at room temperature), melting point and boiling point in kelvin, and density in grams per cubic centimeter (grams per liter for gases).
• Classification and history: group block (alkali metal, halogen, noble gas, transition metal, lanthanide, actinide and so on) and year discovered. Elements known since antiquity, such as gold and copper, show "Ancient".

For the heaviest synthetic elements many of these fields are blank, because the values have never been measured. Oganesson, for instance, has an electron configuration and a discovery year (2002) but no measured melting point or density. That's not a missing-data bug; it's the state of the science.

Uses in class and out of it

• Element of the day. Chemistry teachers pull one at the start of class and have students find it on the wall chart, name its group and guess its state before revealing the card.
• Flashcard quizzing. Cover the card, read only the symbol or atomic number to a partner, and have them name the element. The electron configuration line doubles as a practice question for orbital filling.
• Random prompts for projects. Assigning presentation topics fairly: everyone clicks once and researches what they get.
• Worldbuilding and naming. Writers and game designers use element names and symbols for ships, characters and materials.
• Trivia and pub quizzes. The year-discovered and density fields make good "higher or lower" questions.

A quick tour of the periodic table

The table's rows are periods and its columns are groups. Elements in a group share outer-electron structure, which is why the generator's group block field is the fastest clue to how an element behaves. Alkali metals (lithium, sodium, potassium and so on) react violently with water; halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine) are one electron short of a full shell and grab it from whatever is nearby; noble gases have full shells and barely react at all. The long block in the middle holds the transition metals, which includes almost every metal you use daily. The two rows usually printed below the table are the lanthanides and actinides. Everything past uranium (92) is synthetic, made in accelerators in quantities of a few atoms, and the elements from 113 to 118 were only named in 2016.

Of the 118 elements, 11 are gases at room temperature (hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine and the six noble gases), two are liquids (mercury and bromine), and the rest are solids. Roughly 90 occur naturally on Earth in measurable amounts. If you get one of the synthetic ones, that's your cue to look up how it was made.

For other nature and science pickers, try the Random Gem Generator for minerals rather than elements, the Random Biome Generator for ecosystems, or the Random Plant Generator and Random Animal Generator for living things. All of them are listed under all animal and nature generators.