In: Chemistry
Dimitri Mendeleev was a Russian chemist ( Father of periodic table).
He, by his own analysis, found that elements repeat their physical and chemical properties periodically as the atomic weight gets increasing. Then he put elements with similar properties in a particular column and in rows maintain the atomic weights in ascending order.
So in some columns or rows of that table there were some empty spaces. This doesn't left the father of periodic table demotivated, rather he guessed that elements in those empty spaces hadn't been found yet.
For example, he predicted the undiscovered element below the Aluminium. In 1875, it was found to be Gallium.
Since the spaces came to his knowledge after arranging the elements as per their properties and atomic weight is increasing in a pattern way in a row, he predicted the atomic weights very accurately.
Due to repeatitive nature, the table was named as 'Periodic table'.