The Families of the Periodic Table
The principal families of elements have been given specific names, as a sort of shorthand to identify groupings of elements with closely related properties. |
Another shorthand is used to refer to a large grouping of elements that all have easily predicted properties -- , main group elements. Main group elements include all of the elements in Groups 1 and 2, Groups 13 through 18, and the element hydrogen. As you will see, an element's location in the table can be used to predict many of its properties. |