Periodic table Periodic table The periodic table, or periodic table of elements, is a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number, electron configuration, and recurring chemical properties, whose structure shows "periodic trends". Generally, within one row (period) the elements are metals to the left, and non-metals to the right, with the elements having similar chemical behaviours placed in the same column. Table rows are commonly called periods and columns are called groups. Six groups have accepted names as well as assigned numbers: for example, group 17 elements are the halogens; and group 18 are the noble gases. Also
Chemical element than the current estimated age of the universe, bismuth-209 has the longest known alpha decay half-life of any naturally occurring element. The very heaviest 24 elements (those beyond plutonium, element 94) undergo radioactive decay with short half-lives and cannot be produced as daughters of longer-lived elements, and thus they do not occur in nature at all. The properties of the chemical elements are often summarized using the periodic table, which powerfully and elegantly organizes the elements by increasing atomic number into rows ("periods") in which the columns ("groups") share recurring ("periodic") physical and chemical properties. The current standard table contains