Check It Out: Student Edition

Mountaineers are well-aware that the periodic table presents a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements ordered by their atomic number, electron configurations, and recurring chemical properties. The table's structure is what makes it periodic: groups of elements show trends that thicc brains can extrapolate from, expounding speculations about undiscovered elements.

Our dawg Dmitri Mendeleev smashed the share button on his version of the periodic table in 1869, when science nerds ain't know squat. His table rocked a mere 63 elements arranged according to atomic mass. Homeboy didn't even finish the job: the OG of periodicity flashed a gaptooth grin since D-Mend left space in the table for undiscovered elements, predicting their properties per the aforementioned parameters.

D-to-the-V wasn't the only clown squeezed into this car, as plenty of other scientists developed periodic tables around the same time. Mendeleev's table won out largely because it accurately predicted the properties of undiscovered elements, starting with gallium in 1875.

Improvements slowly accumulated, like in 1913 when Henry Moseley discovered that the atomic number (rather than atomic mass) determines an element's position in the periodic table. This momentous brain blast royally jacked junk up, rearranging the elements and tickling Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr pink.

As scientists put in work, the periodic table grew large and wide, packing on an additional 55 elements and becoming the swole beast we know today. The modern periodic table is organized into rows (periods) and columns (groups). The elements in a period stack the same number of electron shells and elements in the same group juggle the same number of valence electrons.

And the tally ticks higher! Today, the periodic table has been extended to include superfreaky elements with atomic numbers higher than 118—the sort you can only create through feats of artifice. Don't get too excited, sport: these elements, while mega-cute, are also highly unstable and exist but a brief moment before they decay, forming dowdy-but-stable elements.

Well, honestly, it doesn't have to!

While the traditional periodic table is en vogue with the dork crowd, a coterie of with-it and hip scientists and educators prefer other schematics. After all, the needs and goals of a user should ultimately inform design choices, amirite?

So, why mess with perfection? Some alt-tab advocates argue that alternatives improve upon the traditional periodic table, while others simply embrace different theoretical approaches to organizing the elements.

Take the sick spiral below, which arranges the elements based on their atomic numbers. It's giving minimalism, it's giving organic curvature, it's giving freshly opened Sol de Janeiro Bum Bum Cream.

Consider, if you will, this magnificent mollusk! Theodor Benfey devised a snail-shaped spiral in the early 1960s to stress continuity, better distinguish periods, and smoothly incorporate the superactinides. Very neat, slimy chic.

Then there's Valery Tsimmerman's humbly christened, physics-forward Adomah system, which relies on the four quantum numbers of electron configuration. In the traditional periodic table, only the first three periods follow quantum number n. This version remedies that spectroscopic indiscretion and folds up real nice: the 2-D version is readily rearranged into a regular tetrahedron.

And, of course, there's Muzzammil Qureshi's periodic table, composed of popping concentric circles. This nasty discoid relies on vertical "families" and horizontal "arcs." Hydrogen and helium get to chill in the eye of the storm, while the lanthanides and actinides get to hang with the d-block elements without disturbing the overall periodicity of the table. Since the transition metals are chemically and physically similar, they all just kinda bump in a big lump.

As you take a big think to break ground on your own version of the periodic table, we leave you with a humble reminder: