Periodic trends

In chemistry, periodic trends are specific patterns present in the periodic table that illustrate different aspects of certain elements when grouped by period and/or group. They were discovered by the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1863. Major periodic trends include atomic radius, ionization energy, electron affinity, electronegativity, nucleophilicity, electrophilicity, valency, nuclear charge, and metallic character.^[1] Mendeleev built the foundation of the periodic table.^[2] Mendeleev organized the elements based on atomic weight, leaving empty spaces where he believed undiscovered elements would take their places.^[3] Mendeleev’s discovery of this trend allowed him to predict the existence and properties of three unknown elements, which were later discovered by other chemists and named gallium, scandium, and germanium.^[4] English physicist Henry Moseley discovered that organizing the elements by atomic number instead of atomic weight would naturally group elements with similar properties.^[3]