He noticed that arranging elements by atomic weight resulted in every eighth element sharing similar properties.

他注意到，按原子量排列元素会导致每八个元素都有相似的属性。

But back in 1911, protons hadn't been discovered yet, so scientists organized elements by their atomic weights, instead.

但是早在 1911 年，质子还没有被发现，所以科学家们用原子量来谈论元素。

That is the atomic weight of carbon.

那就是碳的原子量。

Each atom has a unique atomic weight.

每个原子都有一个独特的原子量。

So the simplest thing was just to sort them in order of their atomic weights.

所以最简单的事情就是按照原子量的顺序对它们进行排序。

In 1869 Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev followed suit and arranged the elements according to atomic weight to create the first version of his periodic table.

1869 年，俄罗斯化学家德米特里·门捷列夫进行效仿，根据原子量排列元素，创造出了第一版元素周期表。

But interestingly, you, because you're a cleverpants, realized that the most significant relationships seem to have nothing to do with the atomic weight.

但有趣的是， 你，因为你是个聪明人，意识到最重要的关系似乎与原子量无关。

Right now, somewhere, a woman is dividing the atomic weight of the best noble gas by the number of colors in the oldest national flag still in use...

现在在某处，有一个女人正用沿用至今最古老的国旗上的颜色数量除以惰性最强的气体的原子量。

Talking about elements in terms of their atomic weight might sound weird, since these days we count elements by their atomic number — the number of protons in the nucleus.

用原子量来谈论元素可能听起来很奇怪，因为现在我们是用原子序数来计算元素——这是原子核中质子的数量。

Not only did Mendeleev correctly predict that the atomic weights of 17 elements were incorrect at the time, he predicted the existence of three elements that had yet to be discovered.

门捷列夫不仅正确地预测了当时 17 种元素的原子量是不正确的，他还预测了三种尚未被发现的元素的存在。