The Periodic Table and The Rear Earths

The Periodic Table Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation  The Periodic Table The establishment of the periodic table was initiated by a series of events that occurred in the field of chemistry from 1669. Hennig Brand, an alchemist, discovered phosphorus after heating metals and found out that some of them busted into flames. Robert Boyle announced the discovery of phosphorus to the public in 1680. In particular, the person who started arranging chemicals on a table based on their atomic masses was Dimitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, in 1869. For this reason, the individual is said to have discovered the periodic table since he also predicted the existence of other chemicals and left empty spaces for them. The periodic table is important since it shows the classification of different elements. In essence, it has columns and rows. At the intersection of a column and a row is a cell where an element is located. The arrangement of elements has a significant meaning, which include chemical properties and atomic structure. In each cell, one can identify a specific element using its chemical symbol. The number located above the chemical symbol is known as the atomic number, while the one below is the atomic weight. The horizontal rows have atomic numbers that increase from left to right. A row is called a period while a column is known as a group or family. Periods are numbered and start from 1-7 (Chapter 8). All elements appearing in similar families or groups have the same properties. For instance, the first column consists of low-density metals that are soft and shiny. In reality, one can cut them using a knife. The two primary categories of elements in the periodic table are representative and transition. Furthermore, the periodic table contains 118 elements. Approximately 92 elements can be found in nature. Specifically, the elements that exist in nature are those with atomic numbers starting from 1-98. Hydrogen (H) is the element number one in the periodic table while the last one is oganesson (Og). All 118 el...