Who created the periodic table?

Who created the periodic table?

• A. Antoine Lavoisier
• B. John Dalton
• C. Henry Moseley
• D. Dmitri Mendeleev

Answer: (D)

Organizing elements by recurring chemical properties and placing them in a table to reveal periodic patterns is what this item tests. Dmitri Mendeleev created the first widely accepted periodic table in 1869, arranging elements in order of increasing atomic mass and grouping those with similar chemical behaviors in the same columns. He even left blank spaces where he believed undiscovered elements would fit and made predictions about their properties, which later proved accurate as those elements were found. This predictive power showed that the table captured real relationships among elements and helped scientists understand and anticipate chemical behavior. While other scientists contributed important ideas—Lavoisier helped establish what counts as an element, Dalton proposed atomic theory, and Moseley later refined the arrangement by atomic number—the person who originally built the version of the periodic table that became the foundation of modern chemistry is Dmitri Mendeleev.

Organizing elements by recurring chemical properties and placing them in a table to reveal periodic patterns is what this item tests. Dmitri Mendeleev created the first widely accepted periodic table in 1869, arranging elements in order of increasing atomic mass and grouping those with similar chemical behaviors in the same columns. He even left blank spaces where he believed undiscovered elements would fit and made predictions about their properties, which later proved accurate as those elements were found. This predictive power showed that the table captured real relationships among elements and helped scientists understand and anticipate chemical behavior.

While other scientists contributed important ideas—Lavoisier helped establish what counts as an element, Dalton proposed atomic theory, and Moseley later refined the arrangement by atomic number—the person who originally built the version of the periodic table that became the foundation of modern chemistry is Dmitri Mendeleev.