The Periodic Table Trivia

The periodic table is one of the great organizing ideas in science: arrange the elements by atomic number and their properties start repeating in a regular, predictable way. Dmitri Mendeleev spotted the pattern clearly enough in 1869 to leave gaps for elements no one had found yet.

This quiz covers symbols, structure, and a few elements that behave oddly.

Reading the Grid

An element's atomic number is simply its count of protons, and it sets the element's place in the table. Columns group elements with similar behavior — the noble gases on the far right barely react with anything.

Symbols That Don't Match the Name

Many symbols come from Latin: gold is Au from aurum, iron is Fe from ferrum, lead is Pb from plumbum. They trip people up precisely because the English name gives no hint.

The Edges of the Table

There are 118 confirmed elements. The heaviest ones exist only for fractions of a second in a lab, while hydrogen, the lightest, makes up most of the visible universe.