Kalzium - Expand your knowledge with Kalzium!

Kalzium, included since KDE 3.1, is an application showing the periodic table including informations of all chemical elements and can therefore be very helpful as an information database. Besides getting information you can also quiz yourself.


When starting Kalzium you'll get to see the complete periodic table in a block and CAS style.

Now, you can switch to the mendeleev one if you want to. The different elements can be sorted, not only by the different blocks, but also by their acid behavior, state of matter or by groups. Besides the CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) numeration, you also have the choice to change to IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry), the old IUPAC, or just switch it totally off.
With the icon on the right of it you can switch the Timeline on. As soon as you do this, a slide will appear with a 2003 on the right end of it. By taking the slide further left you'll see how some of the elements disappear. This is a good way to look at the history of the periodic table.
When clicking on the Info button next to the Timeline one, the basic informations of the element will be shown to you when standing right above it.
With the last icon of the list you can choose whether you want to have a legend (on the bottom) or not.
For all this you can also use the 'View' menu.

To get further information on the chemical elements just click on the one you wish to know more about and you'll get a separate dialog. There you'll find details about the symbol, atomic weight, element number, melting as well as boiling point, atomic radius, electronegativity and when the element was discovered. With a right click you'll get an even more detailed information dialog including pictures.

In the 'Operations' menu you can plot something or search for specific data.
The 'Plot' dialog will plot the atomic weight, electronegativity, melting point, ionization energy, atomic radius, boiling point or density of each element for you. If you do not want all elements to be plot you can also choose a certain range. The Plot Dialog also offers a list of all the elements to choose where you can inform yourself about all figures by clicking on the little cross besides each of them.
With the 'Search Data', Kalzium provides a table consisting all elements. On the right of this table you have the possibility to select the information you want to be shown.

You want to see what you already know about the chemical elements? No problem, just go to the 'Quiz' menu and you can test your knowledge. First you'll get asked how many questions you want to be asked. In the next step the test dialog appears. After having answered all the questions you get your result where you can see which questions you didn't answer right including the right answers behind them.

Last but not least you can also configure Kalzium the way you want it to be. For that please go to the 'Settings' menu. Here you can choose whether you want the Statusbar to be shown or not, configure Shortcuts, Toolbars or Kalzium in general.

All in all, you can say that Kalzium is a very good application to work with and to get more information on the chemical elements.

Author: Anke Leiber
January 2004
With special thanks to Carsten Niehaus for the review!
Kalzium webpage: http://edu.kde.org/kalzium/

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