What Is The Periodic Table?

The Periodic Table is a large table or chart that contains all the known chemical elements. It is arranged in order of the atomic number of the elements. The atomic number of an element is the number of protons that it has in its nucleus. The number of protons is always the same as the number of electrons that orbit around the nucleus.

When the elements are arranged in this way, and are put into a pattern that matches up elements with similar chemical properties, the result is the well known periodic table. The table has columns, called groups and rows, called periods. Today's periodic table has 8 groups but has special sections for the transition elements and for the radioactive elements, the lanthanides and the actinides.

Hydrogen, which has an atomic number of 1 does not really fit into any of the groups, so is the first element, placed in its own period at the head of Group I.

It is a list of elements arranged in order of their increasing proton number. It divides the elements into periods and groups. A period is a horizontal row of elements and a group is a vertical column of elements. This table consists of seven periods of elements, named 1 to 7. The periods run horizontally from left to right. It also consists of 8 groups of elements, from I to 0, running vertically from left to right.

The inventor of the periodic table is the Russian chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907), remembered for organizing the elements in the Table. He was a Russian patriot and worked hard for his country. He was one of the first Russian professors to write a textbook for his chemistry students. He received many honors, the greatest of it all which is having an element named after him, element 101 is Mendelevium.

It is a table of elements.