Independent Research (How John Newlands tried to classify the elements)

How John Newlands tried to classify the elements

In the year 1865, John Newlands discovered the law of octaves and classified 56 elements into 11 groups on the basis of their physical properties. The law of octaves basically states that every eighth element showed similar physical and chemical properties when the elements are placed in the order of their increasing atomic masses. The law of octaves is also applied even to our current periodic table.
Newlands was the first to recognize this and he was also the first to assign atomic numbers to the elements. Unfortunately, his work was also not accepted by his peers.

This was most probably due to the more obvious flaws of his table of elements. For example, the first row assembles elements with similar chemical properties together, such as fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine, but it also includes elements with different chemical properties together such as cobalt, nickel, palladium, platinum and iridium. Not only that, his table failed to leave room for new elements that being discovered. These mistakes were probably due to the fact that he was so enthralled by his discovery; he made the mistake of trying to force the elements into this pattern.