Practicing Success
Mendeleev placed gaps in his periodic table so that new elements could be discovered in the future. Which of the following elements eventually made it into the Periodic Table? |
Chlorine Silicon Germanium Oxygen |
Germanium |
The correct answer is option 3. Germanium. Mendeléev left some gaps in his Periodic Table. Instead of looking upon these gaps as defects, Mendeléev boldly predicted the existence of some elements that had not been discovered at that time. Mendeléev named them by prefixing a Sanskrit numeral, Eka (one) to the name of preceding element in the same group. For instance, scandium, gallium and germanium, discovered later, have properties similar to Eka–boron, Eka–aluminium and Eka–silicon, respectively. The properties of Eka–Aluminium predicted by Mendeléev and those of the element, gallium which was discovered later and replaced Eka-aluminium |