The History of the Periodic Table

Since the ancient times, people like the Greeks were acknowledged of the existence of elements, but only knew of common ones like gold, tin, and copper. It wasn't until the middle of the nineteenth century when about 50 elements were discovered and scientists began to wonder if the elements vary from each other or if a pattern is represented in the arrangement of the elements. A number of scientists tried different kinds of patterns. For example, the German scientist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner tried grouping the three halogens elements (chlorine, bromine, and iodine) in a consecutive order of atomic weights. The idea of putting the elements together finally took shape when the two scientists, Dmitry Mendeleev and Julius Lothar Meyer successfully arranged the order of the elements by their atomic weight and discovered that the properties of the elements recur in the same pattern. With the works of these scientists, the periodic table was created as well as the periodic law. With this set, scientists as of today had been able to organize the elements without much trouble and were able to discover unknown elements. Although there are many elements in the world and many of them have not always been known of, the periodic table had been created to classify these elements as well as the table's corresponding patterns and trends. During the ancient times, the philosopher, Aristotle made a proposal saying that there are four elements which are fire, water, earth, and wind. All of these elements can be combined in any ways to form other elements. Unfortunately, his theory was later disregarded after the identity of chemical elements began to be discovered. For centuries, the chemical elements had been cumulating since the discovery of the first element. Finally, there had been a point of time where scientists began to wonder if there is a pattern that can organize all the elements together. And also, scientists began wonder if any sort of relationship is present among the