Modern Standard Table

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The conventional modern periodic table style arranges the elements in seven periods and eighteen groups with two, eight, eighteen or thirty-two elements in each period. To accommodate the sixth and seventh period with their thirty-two elements in a an array of eighteen. the "rare earths" or Actinide and Lanthanide groups are normally shown below the main sequences.

Although scientist recognize that this portrayal , (the modern periodic table) is a strictly artificial construct devised for purposes of conceptualizing the elemental progressions in a two dimensional grid, it is tempting for non-scientists and beginning students to assume that the conventional periodic table is somehow a "picture" of reality. It is not. Viewing the alternate styles can help cure that miss-conception.