A basic understanding of the fundamental ideas in chemistry is required of students in GCSE Science. This is the second of six quizzes going over these fundamental ideas and it looks specifically at the periodic table.
The periodic table is a fundamental part of chemistry and we take it and its usefulness for granted, but that hasn't always been the case. In the first half of the 19th Century, various people had been trying to make sense of the elements and see if there was any order amongst them. Scientists had spotted that there were some similarities in the way that some elements behaved during chemical reactions, but not enough to create anything other than a few simple patterns. A big problem was that many elements had not been discovered at the time. It was a bit like trying to set out a jigsaw of over 100 pieces using only about 30 random pieces (including several from a different jigsaw) and having no picture to work from! Some scientists still believed that there were only 4 elements - those decided on by the ancient Greeks - fire, earth, air and water!