Periodic Blanket Of Elements Smartbuddie Although Mendeleev was the inventor of the periodic table, Henry Moseley, 44 years later, discovered the right explanation for the elements and their regular patterns. Moseley stated that elements are different because they have different numbers of protons. Moseley also discovered that elements' positions in the table could be predicted based on their atomic numbers and not their weight. Modern tables now include 108 and 109 elements. The modern table has 18 groups. Because they have the same number electrons, all elements within a group share similar chemical and physical characteristics. Period is the name given to horizontal rows in the modern table. Each element of a row has different chemical properties. This is because the number or electrons of protons and electrons changes from one row to another.
