Question

The last element in Newland’s periodic table was:
(A) Zinc
(B) Barium
(C) Cesium
(D) Thorium

Answer 1

Hint: To answer this question, we must recall the Newland’s Law of Octaves on which he had designed his periodic table. According to it, every first element was similar to the eighth element.

Complete step by step solution:
John Newland was an ardent admirer of music. He observed that every first note was the same as the note eight places ahead of it (think of SA Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni SA or Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do). This gave him the idea that this might be the case for elements true. So, he arranged the elements known at that time on the increasing order of their atomic masses and found a periodic pattern of properties.
This method of arrangement met with a lot of resistance from the scientific community since it had lots of shortcomings. It is still regarded as important as Newland was the first one to assign an atomic number to all 62 elements known at that time.
The drawbacks of Newland’s Law of octaves were:
* Several elements fit into the same slot like Cobalt and Nickel, this created tremendous confusion.
* Some elements having no common properties like Platinum and Nickel were grouped together.
* As new elements began to be discovered like Noble gases, this method was no longer valid. Cesium was the last of the 62 elements which was grouped in this manner.

Hence, the correct answer is Option (C) Cesium.

Note: Despite its drawbacks, we should remember that the empty slots in Newland’s periodic table were the first one to provide an idea for the discovery of new elements. Since, these were arranged in a regular manner scientists for the first time could even predict the properties of these undiscovered elements.