Carsten Niehaus <cniehaus@kde.org>
Developer: Robert Gogolok
Revision 0.5
Copyright © 2001, 2002 Carsten Niehaus
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
Kalzium is a program which shows you the Periodic System of the elements (PSE). You can use Kalzium to search for information about the elements or to learn facts about the PSE.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Kalzium provides you with all kind of information about the PSE (Periodic System of Elements.) You can lookup lots of information about the elements and also use visualisations to show them. If the information provided by Kalzium are not sufficient for you you can look up more via the internet. It is free and licensed under the GNU Public License.
Using Kalzium
Here are screenshots of Kalzium in action:
You see that using Kalzium is easy to use and that it is usefull for pupil of all ages and also for students and such as a small and quick database.
If you are too good for this world, you can change the level.
Here is a screenshot of Kalzium's information dialog.
In this dialog you get all the information Kalzium provides. The dialog is divided into three parts: General, States and Energies.
If you click on Web Lookup Kalzium will get more information from the web (in a new window).
Calculations
In Kalzium 0.5 we only provide one calculation. This is called KMol. In the field Formula you can enter a totals formula and will get the molecular weight Mw measured in “u” and the elemental composition. KMol knows all elements of the PSE.
Color schemes
Timeline
You can active this feature either with the most-right icon in the iconbar or via Settings->Show Toolbar. If it is activated you will see a slider below the PSE and an LCD which displays the number 2002. If you move the slider you will notice that some elements disappear if you move it to the right and reappear if you move it to the right. Furthermore the number will change constantly.
The number represents the data you are looking at. If you move the slider to e.g. 1856 you will only see the elements which where known in the year 1856.
You will notice that some elements are not even shown in the year 2002. This is because some of the elements have not been discovered yet but are predicted to exist.
Numeration
You can change the numeration to IUPAC and CAS or switch it off.
The IUPAC is the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. This is an organization which defines the most standards for chemical concerns.
An “A” means that that period is a maingroup, a “B” means it is a Nebengruppe.
The CAS is the Chemical Abstracts Service. With their numeration the 18 groups have the numbers from 1 to 18. Though the IUPAC numeration is the official, the CAS numeration is what is effectivly used.
Configuring Kalzium
Kalzium has many configuration options, which you can access by opening the Display Options window, either with the wrench toolbar icon, or selecting Configure Kalzium... from the Settings menu. The window is depicted below:
Questions and Answers
How can I contribute?
Credits and License
Kalzium
Program Copyright, 2001, 2002 Carsten Niehaus <cniehaus@kde.org>
Contributors:
Robert Gogolok, lots of help and coding
This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Installation
Kalzium is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org/.
Kalzium can be found in the kdeedu package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main FTP site of the KDE project.
Requirements
Kalzium itself can be found on The Kalzium home page and is part of the KDE-Edu project
You can find a list of changes in the file ChangeLog in the distribution of kalzium.
Compilation and Installation
In order to compile and install Kalzium on your system, type the following in the base directory of the Kalzium distribution:
% ./configure % make % make install
Since Kalzium uses autoconf and automake you should have no trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.