The History of the Periodic Table

The history of the periodic table dates back all the way to the 1800's. It was a long progress for it to become what it is today; going through studies of many famous scientists of those days, changing format, changing patterns and theories. In 1863, 52- 62 elements were discovered and even before then the first attempt in trying to organize those elements was done by William Odling, but didn’t succeed. Three years later, mister John Newlands thought he had found a pattern, where every 8th element shared common properties. It was given a name as well, calling it the “law of octaves”, but it wasn’t consistent as he kept changing it therefore didn’t work. Another three years later it was time for Dimitri Mendeleev’s turn to ponder over the table of elements and was successful! He found a method where it shows the elements masses and properties. He was the one that gave the name “periodic table” as he arranged the elements in periods (rows) and in groups (columns), also that the elements recur periodically, a suitable name. Mendeleev thought it out carefully; leaving gaps just in case new elements were to be discovered, allowing predictions of the properties & characteristics and understanding to the data.

                The modern Periodic table today is organized according to atomic number than of the atomic mass. We learn from the periodic table by knowing the Periodic law: properties of the chemical element recur periodically when the elements are arranged from the lowest to highest atomic number. There are different sections of the table that you should know by now: Alkali Metals, Alkali Earth Metals, Transition Metals, Halogens, noble gases and the “inner-transition metals” there are lanthanides (first row underneath the table) and actinides (underneath lanthanides).