Types of periodic tables

Since Dimitri Mendeleev formulated the periodic law in 1871, and published an associated periodic table of chemical elements, authors have experimented with varying types of periodic tables for teaching, aesthetic or philosophical purposes. Earlier, in 1869, Mendeleev had mentioned different layouts including short, medium, or even cubic forms. It appeared to him that the latter (three-dimensional) form would be the most natural approach but that "attempts at such a construction have not led to any real results". On spiral periodic tables, "Mendeleev...steadfastly refused to depict the system as [such]...His objection was that he could not express this function mathematically."

Typology In 1934, George Quam, a chemistry professor at Long Island University, New York, and Mary Quam, a librarian at the New York Public Library compiled and published a bibliography of 133 periodic tables using a five-fold typology: I. short; II. long (including triangular); III. spiral; IV. helical, and V. miscellaneous. In 1952, Therald Moeller expressed disdain as to the many types of periodic table:

The literature is replete with suggested (and discarded) modifications of the M periodic table. In fact so many modifications have appeared that one is tempted to conclude that practically every author has his [sic] own concept of what a workable arrangement must be. Unfortunately, the majority of the tabulations proposed are either unwieldy or utterly worthless, and only a few valuable suggestions have been made. Geometry does not permit of an arrangement which is sufficiently ideal to serve all the required purposes equally well. Thus the many three-dimensional models, embracing globes, helices, cones, prisms, castles, etc., are interesting but lacking in utility. To a lesser extent, the more involved two-dimensional arrangements do little toward solving the difficulty, and essentially the only suggestions as to modifications which are truly constructive are those centering in reflection of electronic configurations. Certainly the most useful of these modifications, and at the same time one of the earliest to be proposed, is the so-called long or [18-column]...table. In 1954, Tomkeieff referred to the three principal types of periodic table as helical, rectilinear, and spiral. He added that, "unfortunately there also a number of freaks". In 1974 Edward Mazurs, a professor of chemistry, published a survey and analysis of about seven hundred periodic tables that had been published in the preceding one hundred years; he recognized short, medium, long, helical, spiral, series tables, and tables not classified. In 1999 Mark Leach, a chemist, inaugurated the INTERNET database of Periodic Tables. It has over 1300 entries as of December 2025. While the database is a chronological compilation, specific types of periodic tables that can be searched for are spiral and helical; 3-dimensional; and miscellaneous. For convenience, periodic tables may be typified as either: 1. short; 2. triangular; 3. medium; 4. long; 5. continuous (circular, spiral, lemniscate, or helical); 6. folding; or 7. spatial. Tables that defy easy classification are counted as type 8. unclassified.

Short

Short tables have around eight columns. This form became popular following the publication of Mendeleev's eight-column periodic table in 1871. Also shown in this section is a modernized version of the same table. Mendeleev and others who discovered chemical periodicity in the 1860s had noticed that when the elements were arranged in order of their atomic weights there was as an approximate repetition of physiochemical properties after every eight elements. Consequently, Mendeleev organized the elements known at that time into a table with eight columns. He used the table to predict the properties of then unknown elements. While his hit rate was less than 50%, it was his successes that propelled the widespread acceptance of the idea of a periodic table of the chemical elements. The eight-column style remains popular to this day, most notably in Russia, Mendeleev's country of birth. An earlier attempt by John Newlands, an English chemist, to present the nub of the same idea to the London Chemical Society, in 1866, was unsuccessful; members were less than receptive to theoretical ideas, as was the British tendency at the time. He referred to his idea as the Law of Octaves, at one point drawing an analogy with an eight-key musical scale. John Gladstone, a fellow chemist, objected on the basis that Newlands's table presumed no elements remained to be discovered. "The last few years had brought forth thallium, indium, caesium, and rubidium, and now the finding of one more would throw out the whole system." He believed that there was as close an analogy between the metals named in the last vertical column as in any of the elements standing on the same horizontal line. Fellow English chemist Carey Foster humorously inquired of Newlands whether he had ever examined the elements according to the order of their initial letters. Foster believed that any arrangement would present occasional coincidences, but he condemned one which placed so far apart manganese and chromium, or iron from nickel and cobalt. The advantages of the short form of periodic table are its compact size and that it shows the relationships between main-group elements and transition-metal groups. Its disadvantages are that it appears to group dissimilar elements, such as chlorine and manganese, together; the separation of metals and nonmetals is hard to discern; there are "inconsistencies in the grouping together of elements giving colorless, diamagnetic ions with elements giving colored, paramagnetic ions; and [a] lack of reasonable positions for hydrogen, the lanthanide elements, and the actinide elements". Some other notable short periodic tables include:

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