Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907) wrote facts about the elements on individual paper cards.

1. Each card contained information such as the element's melting point, density, colour, atomic mass (the average mass of one atom of that element), and bonding powers (the number of chemical bonds an element can form).
2. Once Mendeleev's cards were made, he tried arranging them in various ways.
3. Finally, Mendeleev noticed that patterns appeared when the elements were arranged in order of increasing atomic mass. One of the trends that he noticed showed that the bonding power of the elements from lithium to fluorine change in an orderly way. For example, after fluorine, the next heaviest element Mendeleev knew was sodium, which has the same bonding power as lithium.
4. Using this knowledge, Mendeleev placed the card for sodium below the card for lithium. This worked well - as he laid out cards, each element had properties similar to the elements above and below it.

Mendeleev published this periodic table in 1869.

The Tulse Luper Suitcases

There are 92 elements in the Look-and-say sequence, corresponding to the 92 non-transuranic elements in the periodic table. The Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story (2003) directed by Peter Greenaway chronicle the life of Tulse Luper through the ninety-two suitcases the character fills over the course of his lifetime.

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Amazon Books

Mendeleev on the Periodic Law: Selected Writings, 1869 - 1905

Author: Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev

Publisher: Dover Publications Inc. (2009)

Binding: Paperback, 320 pages