Interactive Periodic Table
The hidden order of 118 elements in a single table
Summary
The periodic table arranges all 118 known elements in the universe by atomic number and explains their behaviour through patterns of columns and rows. Explore the details of each element with clickable cells.
In depth
When Dmitri Mendeleev arranged the elements by mass in 1869, he noticed that elements with similar behaviour recur at regular intervals: this is the basis of the periodic table. Today the elements are arranged by atomic number (the number of protons). Elements in the same column show similar chemical behaviour because they have the same number of outer-shell electrons: the alkali metals (group 1) react violently with water, while the noble gases (group 18) hardly react at all. The structure of the table comes from the rules of quantum mechanics for filling the s, p, d and f orbitals, which is why it has blocks. The lanthanide and actinide series are drawn separately from the main table because they fill f orbitals.
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