Period (periodic table) across periods. Seven periods of elements occur naturally on Earth. For period 8, which includes elements which may be synthesized after 2016, see the extended periodic table. A group in chemistry means a family of objects with similarities like different families. There are 7 periods, going horizontally across the periodic table. The first period contains the least elements than any other, with only two, hydrogen and helium. They therefore do not follow the octet rule. Chemically, helium behaves like a noble gas, and thus is taken to be part of the group 18 elements. However, in terms of its nuclear
History of the periodic table in an obscure Russian journal and then republished in a German journal, "Zeitschrift für Chemie". In it, Mendeleev stated that: Scientific benefits of Mendeleev's table Unknown to Mendeleev, a German chemist, Lothar Meyer, was also working on a periodic table. Although his work was published in 1864, and was done independently of Mendeleev, few historians regard him as an equal co-creator of the periodic table. Meyer's table only included twenty-eight elements, which were not classified by atomic weight, but by valence, and he never reached the idea of predicting new elements and correcting atomic weights. A few months after Mendeleev