


The delayed 2020 Olympics are currently taking place in Tokyo, and setting a number of firsts. Obviously, it’s the first Olympics to take place without a public audience in the stadiums to watch the events. However, it’s also the first Olympics at which the medals are made entirely from recycled metals. This graphic takes a closer look at their composition and how the metals to make them were amassed.

If you’ve been enjoying the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang over the past few weeks, you might have wondered what the medals the winning athletes receive are made of. As this graphic shows, it’s not quite as simple as gold, silver, and bronze!

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you might have assumed that the medals given out are, as advertised, made of gold, silver, and bronze. Due to metal values, however, the reality is slightly more complicated. Giving out pure gold medals would be financially crippling for the International Olympic Committee, so unsurprisingly some compromises are involved. This graphic looks at the different metals used.

This graphic looks at the colour of various metal and metalloid ions that occur during flame tests. Most people probably remember doing this experiment in school chemistry lessons, if not with the full range of ions shown here, but for the uninitiated a brief explanation of the origin of the colours follows.

The second of a series of infographics on the groups of the periodic table, here some general properties of the group 2…