Introduction

Abstract

The elements that compose everything around us have been a constant source of curiosity for millenia, with our understanding of them continuously improving. We have come a long way since our classical belief in the existence of only four elements: earth, wind, water, and fire. Major progress was made in the nineteenth century, when Dimitri Mendeleev developed the Periodic Table of the Elements, a table that grouped similar elements together based on their chemical properties, and that was able to predict the existence of yet undiscovered elements.