Periodic Table Vocabulary

What we verified before publishing

Fact-check status: passed

The following claims were verified through Perplexity Sonar before the questions were finalised. The host can reference any of them during play:

• The periodic table is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows called periods and columns called groups based on their atomic numbers.
• Elements in the same group tend to show similar chemical characteristics because they have the same valence electron configuration.
• An element is a pure substance made up of only one type of atom that cannot be separated into simpler substances by physical or chemical means.
• The atomic number of an atom is equal to the number of protons in its nucleus and uniquely identifies each element.
• Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons.
• Metals are elements that are typically solid, shiny, malleable, and good conductors of heat and electricity.
• Non-metals are elements that are typically not shiny, often gases or brittle solids, and are poor conductors of heat and electricity.
• Metalloids are elements that have properties of both metals and non-metals and are sometimes referred to as semiconductors.
• Noble gases are unreactive non-metals located in Group 18 of the periodic table.
• Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian scientist, produced one of the first practical periodic tables in the 19th century.
• Out of the 118 known elements, the first 94 occur naturally while elements 95 to 118 are synthetic and created in laboratories.
• The periodic table is divided into four blocks: s-block, p-block, d-block, and f-block, based on the valence electron orbitals.