Why was it necessary to create a periodic table?

Answer 1

It was a matter of utmost importance!

Consider if you knew there were the elements carbon, sulfur, oxygen, nickel, iron, silicon. and that was it!

Then one day a guy shows up with a rock you had never seen before. What is it? How will it behave? Can I make a shovel out of it? Will it melt? How high do I have to heat it?

This happened over and over and eventually there was a need to classify all these substance into a concise table, in which properties, reactivity, and electronic structure we easy to see with a quick scan.

Imagine how distraught you would be when making the table to find a hole in it - and unknown element that hadn't been found yet!

Yes it was necessary, and important for science, and the scientific curousity about nature that gave rise to the periodic table and chemistry as a formal science.

Answer 2

Maybe it wasn't necessary to create it so much as the table was already there, waiting to be discovered and filled in.

The table is periodic, that is, as you move left to right and down to the next row, you are repeating the same cycle of adding electrons. It's more of a spiral, with each turn of the circle rising one level. In essence, the table allows us to see the properties of the elements in a sequential form. As the table was filled in with more discoveries, the nature of the elements was better understood, and the properties as they relate to the elements' nuclear and electronic structure was also seen more clearly. When you can discover a repeatable pattern, you now have the power to predict future properties and results. A great boost to the collective scientific ego.

Answer 3

Because the periodic table organizes elements by their reaction to other elements and is like a story for each element. Of course the left side of the table is for metals which have less valence electrons than a non-metal. The right side represents gases and non-metals that tend to be more negative than the metals.
There are many different answers but mostly because the elements that surround their neighbor elements share common attributes.

Answer 4

It was the best way to classify the known and unknown elements. The table predicted how the yet undiscovered elements would react and where they would fit.

Answer 5

it was not "necessary" but is very useful. It allows us to put elements with similar chemistry together, and we can easily see which elements have similar characteristics, eg the halides, or noble gases (verticle column)
or transition metals (horizontal row)

Answer 6

It was the easiest way to classify atoms by how they react with others based on valence electron counts.

Answer 7

it indicates wich elements can react with other elements, and what they form then.

Answer 8

convenience