Alternative periodic tables quantum numbers of the electron configuration, hence it has a four-dimensional base. In Theodor Benfey's periodic table (1964), the elements form a two-dimensional spiral, starting from hydrogen, and folding their way around two peninsulars, the transition metals, and lanthanides and actinides. A superactinide island is already slotted in. The Chemical Galaxy (2004) is organized in a similar way. Timothy Stowe's physicist's periodic table is three-dimensional with the three axes representing the principal quantum number, orbital quantum number, and orbital magnetic quantum number. Helium is again a group 2 element. Paul Giguère's 3-D periodic table consists of 4 connected billboards with
Periodic table occupies a new shell corresponds to the start of each new period, these positions being occupied by hydrogen and the alkali metals. Since the properties of an element are mostly determined by its electron configuration, the properties of the elements likewise show recurring patterns or periodic behaviour, some examples of which are shown in the diagrams below for atomic radii, ionization energy and electron affinity. It is this periodicity of properties, manifestations of which were noticed well before the underlying theory was developed, that led to the establishment of the periodic law (the properties of the elements recur at varying