Z PERIODIC/SPECTROMETER
Interactive instrument · 6 arrangements · 8 property maps

The Morphing Periodic Table

The same 118 elements, refolded six ways. Each tile flies to its new position when you switch arrangements — so the relationships hold while the shape changes. Map any property across the whole set, and hover any element to light up its group and period.

Arrangement
Map property
Categories
Periodic trends
Physical
Guided tours

The six arrangements, explained

Standard. The familiar 18-column table. Notice the lanthanides and actinides are torn out and floated below — a compromise to keep the page from getting too wide.

Long form (32-column). The f-block put back where it chemically belongs, between groups 2 and 3. This is the "true" shape of the table; we usually cut it up only to fit on paper.

Left-step (Janet, 1928). Elements ordered by how their orbitals actually fill (the s-block moves to the right). Its boldest claim: helium sits above beryllium, not neon — because helium's electrons fill an s-orbital, just like the alkaline-earth metals.

Spiral. One continuous ribbon from hydrogen outward, never broken. Each loop is one period, so you can trace the unbroken thread of atomic number the way de Chancourtois and Benfey imagined it.

Orbits. Each period becomes a concentric ring — a nod to the electron shells in the Bohr diagram on the right. The alkali metals all sit at the top of their ring and the noble gases close it, so one full lap around any ring walks you through exactly one period.

Wave. The table unrolled into a single row by atomic number, with the mapped property as height. The 2-D table is really this wave, wrapped so its peaks stack into columns — map ionization energy and the same spike returns at every noble gas. That repeating function of atomic number is what "periodic" literally means. (Categorical maps like Family have no height, so picking one returns you to the Standard grid.)

Tip: the small number at the bottom of each tile shows the actual value being mapped in the current property.