How Element Lookup handles scientific data
The teaching interface is only the last step. Scientific values must have authoritative provenance, clear units and appropriate evidence labels before they are treated as production-ready data.
Source workflow
- Authoritative scientific source
- Normalized data field and unit
- Provenance and source date/version
- Scientific QA and disagreement notes
- Teaching interface
AI can help explain, organize and flag conflicts, but it is not treated as the source of scientific numbers.
Preferred source families
IUPAC, NIST, PubChem, USGS, the Royal Society of Chemistry, WebElements, peer-reviewed literature and appropriate government or intergovernmental datasets are prioritized according to the field being shown.
Evidence language
Direct experimental measurement under stated conditions.
A recommended or compiled value based on available measurements and expert evaluation.
Derived from other stated quantities or an accepted model rather than read directly from one measurement.
A source-reviewed teaching, geography or historical context where a single measured numeric status would be the wrong description.
A theoretical value or behavior that has not been measured directly.
No defensible production value is currently presented. Unknown is preferable to an invented number.
The current 118-element explorer dataset is useful for interaction, but the project will not label a downloadable CSV/JSON as an authoritative dataset until the 118-element field registry has source-level provenance and QA.
When sources disagree
Element Lookup does not silently average conflicting values. The field is checked for measurement conditions, isotope or allotrope scope, source date and whether the value is measured, evaluated or predicted. If one production value cannot be defended, the page explains the dependency or shows the value as uncertain.
Geography is time-stamped
Mine production, primary production and other changing geographic datasets are labeled with the commodity and reporting period. A resource map is not reused as a production map, and conceptual cycles are not disguised as country data.
Interactive models are teaching models
Atomic nuclei, orbitals and crystal viewers are simplified scientific visualizations. Their captions state what is literal, what is schematic and what should not be interpreted as a classical trajectory or engineering-scale model.
Search data does not become scientific evidence
Search Console and Semrush can reveal what learners ask, but keyword demand never determines a scientific value. Search data guides explanation and navigation; authoritative scientific sources determine the chemistry.
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