Why has it taken so long for textbook authors to select one standard form of periodic table for use in introductory and general chemistry textbooks? The restriction of such tables to the flyleaf requires avoidance of the long forms, but the resultant shortening process requires the vivisection and subscripting of the lanthanoids and actinoids. This subscripting would not have presented a problem had all authors chosen the same cuts. As we know, they did not.
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