The Periodic Table of elements

Hello everyone I am Ion_Turtle and I'm back! Today I'm talking about the periodic table of elements.



      The periodic table might look menacing, but its really not. Its very simple. The periodic table is a list of all the elements in the universe. It puts elements in different places based n their properties. The number of electron shells in an atom determines its properties. (I have an earlier post all about atoms) The person who made the periodic table of elements was Dimitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. He was a Russian chemistry teacher. He also has a giant messy beard.

      If you look at the periodic table you will see a lot of squares. Each of these squares has a one or two letters in it. Those letters represent an element. If you look at the top right you will see a square with the letter "H" in it. (For an interactive table Click here! ) The "H" represents hydrogen the first element. If you look above it you will see the number one. That represents the number of protons (or electrons) in the element. Across it on the right you will see the symbol "He" (helium) with the number two above it. It has two protons. Then the next one has a three, then a four. This is because the table is made so that as you go down the rows the number of protons goes up. The average weight of each element is also on the table. It is found under the symbol.


      The table has different sections. One way of sectioning off different elements is in groups and periods. Groups are vertical columns. There are 18 of them. All the elements in a group have similar properties. This is because it shows how many electrons are in the last shell of the elements.


      As you can see this Lithium atom has one full shell with 2 electrons and another shell with just one. It is in the first group. The elements in the last group (18) have their last shell full.
      The table is also separated into periods. Periods are the horizontal rows. The period represents the number of electron shells that an element has. If you look back up at Lithium you will see that it has 2 shells. It is also in the second period or row. As you read across a period the number of electrons in the last shell increases.


The periodic table can also be separated based on the properties of the element. This is usually done with colors. The colors won't be the same on each table but the elements will be separated the same.

      All the way on the left (orange in the picture above) are the Alkali Metals. They dissolve in water. (Please note that Hydrogen is above the Alkali Metals but is not one of them) Next (yellow) is the Alkaline Earth Metals. They also dissolve in water. The biggest section (purplish) is the Transition Metals. They are strong and shiny. Followed by (bright blue) the Poor Metals. They are soft with low melting points. The Semimetals (not shown) conduct electricity only under certain conditions making them great for electronics.  Next (green) is the Nonmetals This section contains some of the elements essential to life. (Carbon and Oxygen) The Noble Gasses (Grayish blue) are next. They don't really react with anything else. The two rows that are commonly taken out and placed at the bottom are also grouped. The top row is the Lanthanoids and the row under it is the Actinoids.

Fun Fact:

Any element above 92 (uranium) is to unstable to occur in nature and has to be made in a lab.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Comment on anything you like or think I could have done better. Make sure to check out the cool song. Also check out my YouTube channel.

Link:
Periodic Table pic
Hydrogen symbol
Lithium atom
Mendeleev