nLab periodic table of chemical elements

Idea

In chemistry, the periodic table of chemical elements is an arrangement of the chemical elements, originally due to the nineteenth century Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev, and now understood as displaying the common behaviors of families of elements according to the atomic number of their atomic nuclei and the pattern of occupation of the outer electron shell.

An explanation of the order of the elements may be given in terms of the quantum physics of atoms (quantum chemistry); for a lucid presentation by Richard Feynman, see (Feynman 63).

References

• Royal Society of Chemistry, Periodic Table, link

• Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol III, Chapter 19, Lectures