The Development of:
The Periodic Table
The predecessors to the current Periodic Table
The periodic table was originally written by Lothar Meyer and Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev; however, many people had discovered elements and thought up of ideas such as the Law of Octaves which stated elements repeated their chemical properties every eighth element (this was discovered by John Newlands, an English chemist). Lothar and Dmitri had put them in a table based on their atomic Weights and the categories they fitted into; Metals, Non-Metals, Transition Elements and Noble Gases. It was Dmitri who had his table published first and Meyer's was published a year later but contained more elements than the previous Table
The Current Periodic Table
Nowadays the table that is used is the one made by Glenn Seaborg. The completion of the Actinide Series enabled him to redesign the Periodic Table into its current form. both the Lanthanide and Actinide series of elements were placed under the Periodic table; these elements should not have been put between the Alkaline Earth Metals and the Transition Metals but if they had been placed in their correct positions then the table would have been too wide for the way Mr Seaborg was publishing the table. Without Mendeleev and Meyer the chances are the Periodic table would not exist so it is thanks to them and anyone else before their time who had been looking into the elements that the Periodic Table exists.