The FreakyTrigger Periodic Table

What is the Periodic Table of FreakyTrigger? The best way to describe it is to firstly say what it is not, and then to say how it was made. If it all makes sense after that, then this truly is a project that you might get something out of. Here it is:

What the FreakyTrigger periodic table is not: science – not even in the loosest limbed definition that FT uses (ie thought experiments and puns). It is not a way of ordering the world, the makers of the dessert periodic table put up last week would be quite disappointed by the general lack of periodicity. Whilst there may be some serendipity in the periodic placement of some of the “elements”, this is more by accident than by design. Indeed the design merely fits that of the periodic table because that was the idea in the first place. And as the methodology shows, any over-arching idea to create a consistent cosmology out of this project was soon scuppered by the organic scourge of many bright ideas. Alcohol.

So to the methodology then. The annual between Christmas and New Year pub crawl. This year we wandered the streets of Borough, going to some terrific pubs, one terrible pub and as is tradition, one was shut. The usual ending for this long day of drinking is some sort of list making, often with complex vetoing. The periodic table (perhaps in a more elemental form) was decided on as the topic weeks before. The methodology changed from a round the table discussion to a free for all, everything named got in. (See element 8). At this time of the evening only the hardcore drinkers were left. Fathers, lightweights, pregnoids and not quite announced pregnoids had left. A few randoms were in the posse, and there were plenty of people unaware of FreakyTrigger itself. And yet the list throws up some wonderful things, and some things worthy of discussion.

So over the next seven years* we will be perusing this periodic table, talking about what it throws up. Starting tomorrow with our hydrogen. In the meantime though, here it is, in its full glory – chemical symbols only. Feel free to guess what some of them are. I am pretty sure that the contributors, back in December, have no idea.

And first things first, tomorrow we will discover what our version of hydrogen is…

*Estimate based on time taken to get through the FT Top 100 tracks of all time.

  FT Periodic Table: Element 1: LOVE

Pete Baran in Blog 7 /FT • 110,229 views