Outdated Memes

Textbook publishers apparently think the periodic table is just a suggestion. "Published half an hour after the Big Bang" is the most accurate description of every chemistry textbook I've ever been assigned. Nothing like paying $300 for a book that's missing elements discovered during the Mesozoic era. Fun fact: since 1995, we've added 15 new elements to the table, and somehow my professor's lecture notes haven't noticed.

Nothing dates a chemistry textbook faster than an incomplete periodic table. This one's showing just hydrogen, helium, lithium, and beryllium—making it about as current as a stone tablet with "fire = hot" scribbled on it. The modern periodic table has 118 elements, but apparently this book went to press when the universe was still in beta testing. The joke about being published "half an hour after the Big Bang" is particularly brilliant because the first elements actually did form within minutes after the universe began. So technically, this textbook is only missing... *checks notes*... 114 elements and about 13.8 billion years of scientific progress. No big deal.