The Periodic Table

Everything that exists is made up of elements. There are over 150 elements today.

All of the elements are organized into a big table, so they are easy to learn about and find.

A long time ago, before the table was invented, Johann Dobereiner though that there needed to be a way to put all of the elements into one place.

Hmmmm.....

So, in 1829, he put the elements that had ben discovered, which was not many, into three groups.

Johann's Triads

Helo

This did not work for long because more and more elements were discovered that did not fit into his table.

Aww, man!

There's too many!

By 1864, Dobereiner's table was so outdated that it was unusable.

Another man decided to try and organize the elements in a different way that would fit all of the elements that had been discovered.

What else could work?

This man's name was John Newlands. He organized the elements into 8 groups.

Maybe 8!

This worked for a little bit, but eventually too many new elements were discovered and his table did not work anymore.

There are more elements Mr. Newlands!